Geographers meet in Malta to discuss Geography in the 21st Century The University of Malta is a member of the HERODOT network (www.herodot.net) – a network for geography in higher education. This network is funded by the European Union and seeks to promote activities which bring together geography departments across Europe. This second round of this network has four new thematic pillars.

- TP1 Citizenship, culture, place and identity
- TP2 Geography for the 21st Century
- TP3 Innovative teaching in and about Europe
- TP4 Lifelong learning and employability

Dr Maria Attard, lecturer at the Geography Division of the Mediterranean Institute has taken over the responsibility of managing thematic pillar 2. To this end, a first meeting was held in Malta between the 23rd and the 24th of March.

A group of 12 geography academics got together to define the objectives of this pillar for the next three year period, whilst establish the workplan and timescales for the delivery of the various initiatives.

Among the efforts of the group, there are activities which focus on promoting geography across different levels of society. The first initiative is a student movie competition on what students think geography is about. This intiative is being coordinated between HERODOT and EGEA which is the European association of Geography students. Information about this can be found at http://www.herodot.net/news1.html

In addition to these activities, the group is looking at creating a tool kit for geographers to promote geography within society. Initial thoughts look at the creation of a website interactive cube which define the main issues related to geography and what geography is all about. The group will also work on conducting a survey across European Universities to analyse what promotion is made, why and how this occurs. The final report will be published and will show current practices and will identify some best practice examples.

The next meeting for the TP2 group will be in Stockholm at the HERODOT conference where the proposals of the group will be discussed with a larger number of academics and get the approval to go ahead with the tasks.

More information about the HERODOT network and the work of the thematic pillar is available online at www.herodot.net