Background and Description

The German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in cooperation with the School of Habitat Studies of the Tata Institute of Social Science and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay are inviting PhD-students, junior researchers and junior professionals and experts from any disciplinary background working on the outlined topics to participate in a 3-week long Summer School on Sustainable Habitats in India from March 31st to April 21st 2010 (preliminary dates) in Mumbai. After a fruitful and successful first Summer School in India in May 2009, in 2010 the issue of green public housing will be addressed within the context of sustainable livelihoods in new and old shanty towns in Mumbai.

Through its new learning approach, the GTZ-DAAD-Summer School ‘Sustainable Habitats in India’ aims at introducing participants from all over India and Germany to the concept of sustainable development, its approach and implementation. “Sustainable Habitats in India” is part of the UN-Decade ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ (ESD)-project, and inspired by “Between Lecture Hall & Project Works”, GTZ-Berlin. This Summer School in India will be the sixth within this framework after Vietnam, Egypt, Brazil, Peru and India and will focus on strengthening sustainable links between researchers, businesspeople, policy makers and development practitioners as well as strengthening the scientific and institutional capacities in developing countries.

By introducing new teaching and educational methods based on peer-and action-learning and inter-disciplinary training for participants with different cultural and technical backgrounds, the Summer School meets the requirements of the current labor market and responds to India’s needs for creative and decisive intellectuals, future decision-makers and representatives of their country within the increasingly international governance-framework.

The three-week program will introduce participants to the following thematic areas:

Governance: Think globally, act locally
Concepts for Urban Sustainability and its implementation in India and the world
Concepts for low-cost Green Public Housing as one basis for Sustainable Livelihoods

Structure of the GTZ-DAAD-Summer School

The duration of the Summer School will be from March 31st to April 21st 2010 (preliminary dates) and will take place at the IITB-TISS School of Habitat Studies in Mumbai:

First week: In the first week, the political framework, state-of-the-art methods, peer-learning techniques will be presented to the participants. In the end of the week group work at different research sites will be initiated in the form of action research.

Second week: Participants will continue to carry out action research tasks in new and old shantytowns in Mumbai and by mid-week start to discuss the results with experts from the different fields and perspectives.

Third week: During the third and final week, further learning-dialogues, amongst others with leading German scientists will conclude in the presentation of the results in a public symposium on the last day.

Objective

The Summer School aims to contribute towards sustainable development in India through bridging the communication gap within research and its implementation at policy level. Through improved communication and networking the mutual benefits could be achieved at different levels with relatively small efforts.

The Summer School intends to introduce to PhD-students, junior researchers and junior experts and professionals that whatever subject they study and whatever field they work in, their activities are a contribution to the overall sustainable development of their country and its society and to highlight that in the process of globalization, everybody’s life and activities are bound to, and influenced by, international processes.

Some objectives and challenges for Sustainable Habitats in India

To understand the slum-dwellers’ perspective of their life world
To transcend life worlds of different classes and castes by common action research in new and old shanty towns of Mumbai
To offer international experiences (north-south-north & south-south) concerning social and green housing and livelihood concepts
To identify interfaces of green and social agendas in shanty towns and discuss their upgrading under win-win-conditions: e.g. rainwater harvesting and sustainable waste-management could create green jobs
To possibly elaborate a proposal/framework for further international and national co-operations after the end of the summer school

Methodology

In order to achieve such ambitious goals in a short period of time, all available knowledge in the learning environment would be utilized. Thus all participants would be experts for sharing their experiences and skills in order to contribute to the success of the learning process.

Blended learning: To arrive well prepared at the phase of attendance, work is going to start some weeks before on a virtual learning platform where the participants meet and come to know each other.
Peer learning: In Mumbai the participants, all with interesting and relevant backgrounds, will meet each other personally. The learning methodology guarantees that all the participants will contribute their knowledge and experiences towards the construction of a new knowledge base which will be complemented by the inputs of Indian and German experts from various academic backgrounds as well as through work experience in different subjects.

Partnerships

The GTZ-DAAD-Summer School “Sustainable Habitats in India” is being prepared and organized in close cooperation with the IITB-TISS School of Habitat Studies in Mumbai, CEPT, other institutions in India, the Habitat-Unit of the Technical University Berlin, Institute for Megacity-research at the University of Cologne, the Sociology Department of the University of Magdeburg, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and GTZ-India.

Application Process

The application process is open for Indian PhD-students, junior researchers and junior professionals and experts working on the outlined topics. The maximum age for participation is 35 years. Please email the filled in application form together with the essay to: sustainable-india@gtz.de. The application deadline is 24th of February 2010. The applications will be evaluated by a multi-institutional selection committee and selected candidates will be informed by 12th of March 2010. After the selection process, an interactive preparatory process will be followed through a blended learning methodology on our virtual collaboration platform: http://sustainable-india.ning.com/

You may download the application form here.