United Nations University (UNU)

The history of the United Nations University began in 1969, with a proposal by United Nations Secretary-General U Thant for “the establishment of a United Nations university, truly international and devoted to the Charter objectives of peace and progress”. The UN General Assembly, in its annual session that year, authorized an expert study on the feasibility of the proposal and, after considering the question further at its next two annual sessions, approved the establishment of the United Nations University in December 1972. The UN General Assembly formally adopted the Charter of the United Nations University in December 1973 — and 36 years later, in December 2009, amended that Charter to explicitly grant UNU permission to award postgraduate degrees.

Since September 1975, when it launched its academic work at a temporary facility in Tokyo, UNU has grown to become a global research and teaching organization with 15 institutes and programmes in 13 countries worldwide, as well as administrative and services units in Tokyo (headquarters), Bonn, Kuala Lumpur, New York and Paris.

In carrying out its work as the academic arm of the United Nations system, UNU maintains close cooperative relationships with other UN system organizations (agencies, programmes, commissions, funds and convention secretariats) as well as with leading universities and research institutes in UN Member States.

The overarching goal of the United Nations University is to contribute to global sustainable development that will enable present generations to live a decent life in peace, in freedom, in safety, and in good health without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. In pursuit of this ideal, the UN University employs a systems-oriented, interdisciplinary, problem-solving approach that integrates the methodological rigour of the natural and physical sciences with the insights of the social sciences and humanities.

As prescribed in the United Nations University Strategic Plan 2011–2014, the programme space within which UNU undertakes its academic activities encompasses five interdependent thematic clusters within the overarching thesis of “sustainability”:

· Population and Health

· Development Governance

· Peace, Security and Human Rights

· Global Change and Sustainable Development

· Science, Technology and Society

These five thematic clusters, and the topics of focus that they encompass, are not conceived as mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive in terms of the issues that are addressed. They are interlinked and interdependent in the sense that none can be addressed in isolation.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 940