Anant National University launches International Centre for Inclusive Cultural Leadership with Prof Amareswar Galla
Anant National University (AnantU), India’s first Design University, is proud
to announce a new global initiative. AnantU has launched the establishment of
the International Centre for Inclusive Cultural Leadership (ICICL). It will be led by
an outstanding UNESCO expert on Culture in Development, Dr Amareswar Galla.
He joins AnantU as the Professor of Inclusive Cultural Leadership. An Indian by
birth and education, Prof Galla brings with him three decades of working on all
the five continents of the world, especially Australia.
The university’s leadership team along with Prof Galla have acknowledged
that in the face of rapid global changes and climate concerns, there is an urgent
need to rethink built environment and design to address inclusion and integration
along with appropriate cultural contexts. ICICL at AnantU aims to nurture such
change-makers through its initiatives, and make Ahmedabad a global centre of
excellence and knowledge generation, as would be befitting for India’s first World
Heritage City.
“Rapid growth coupled with tourism as the world’s fasting growing industry
must confront serious environmental and climate concerns. Sustainability
requires new modes and modalities of development. The immediate imperative is
to rethink SDGs with a particular focus on the built environment and inclusive
design. It is a well-known dictum by now that ‘more of the same will not do.’
AnantU, as the first Design University in India, will provide critical leadership to
address the paradigm shift needed. Its recent election, through the new
International Centre for Inclusive Cultural Leadership, to the Membership of the
UNESCO UNITWIN Network ‘Culture, Tourisme, Développement’ Chaired by the
prestigious Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, positions AnantU at the
cutting edge of universities in the Asia Pacific.”
– Dr Amareswar Galla, Professor of Inclusive Cultural Leadership,
International Centre for Inclusive Cultural Leadership, Anant National University
As a first step, the ICICL has kick-started the new year by being inscribed
into the UNESCO UNITWIN Network of eminent professors focusing on Culture,
Tourism and Development. It is chaired by one of the leading universities in
Europe, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. The ICICL will work at three
different levels of seamless cooperation and coordination. At AnantU, it will build
on the strengths of faculty, identify gaps and develop critical impact projects. At
the city-level, it will establish liaison with other relevant faculties and institutions
in Ahmedabad to promote the built environment and design excellence. All new
developments will be collaborative and not competitive. At the global level, it will
establish a nexus of partnerships through the UNESCO UNITWIN Network for the
benefit of all appropriate institutions in South Asia.
Furthermore, ICICL will focus on three areas of development. Firstly, on
curricula design and appropriate pedagogy addressing UN Agenda 2030 and SDGs.
It will conceptualise everything within the frame of the New Urban Agenda from
UN HABITAT III. ICICL will concentrate on capacity building through higher
education institutions within the ambit of UNESCO Hard Law and Soft Law
instruments, especially the 2015 Recommendation on Museums and Collections;
2011 Recommendation on Historical Cultural Landscapes; and 2003 Convention
on Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. It will advocate for rethinking all forms of
arts, culture, heritage and environment within the complexity of integrated local
area planning and climate change as Sustainable Heritage Development.
Secondly, ICICL will facilitate global partnerships for graduate enrichment and
faculty exchanges through projects. Thirdly, ICICL will assist in the co-creation of
innovative and inclusive interdisciplinary doctoral and postdoctoral programmes.
The International Centre for Inclusive Cultural Leadership is a high-level
academic, professional and community platform for innovation, inspiration and
knowledge generation, facilitating the delivery of the UN SDGs by building the
capacities and capabilities of leadership. It will benchmark developments against
UNESCO and other UN Standard Setting instruments.