Green light from Brussels for LE:NOTRE+PLUS

LE:NOTRE+PLUS is a Thematic Network Dissemination Project which forms the forth year of the LE:NOTRE Project. LE:NOTRE+PLUS stands for ‘LE:NOTRE - Project for Long-term and University-wide Sustainability’. LE:NOTRE+PLUS has now been ‘selected’ by Brussels as one of the Thematic Network Projects to received European Union funding (see link - official letter and experts evaluation). However we have not yet received the contract and are still waiting to hear about the level of grant that the project will receive.

The third year of the LE:NOTRE Project is due to end on the 30th September 2005 (although an extension for 3 months has been applied for due to the late payment of the grant for the third year). Dissemination Projects are funded for one year only and have the aim of spreading the results of the Network to a wider public.

The pre-proposal for LE:NOTRE+PLUS was submitted on 1st November 2004 and we were informed in December that the project had been selected to go on to the next stage. A full proposal was submitted on 1st March 2005 and we received information from Brussels that the project had been selected in July. LE:NOTRE+PLUS will start on 1st October 2005 and run until 30th September 2006.

LE:NOTRE+PLUS has the following aims:

• to make a significant contribution to developing the sustainability of the LE:NOTRE Thematic Network,
• to respond to issues which have been identified and ideas which have been developed during the course of the project,
• to extend the reach of the project both within and beyond the current university-based network, and to address the ‘new tasks’ of thematic networks which have been formulated since the conception of the original project concept in 2001.

This ambitious and broad range of aims, which have all grown out of the LE:NOTRE Project, has led to the development of a project structure which involves a series of separate, although to a greater or lesser degree interdependent, sub-projects within the context of the Dissemination Project as a whole. Each of these sub-projects has its own specific objectives, outputs, activities and target groups. The eight sub-projects are:

1. The establishment of a new European Academic Landscape Architecture Journal
2. The establishment of ECLAS on a new legal footing with new statues and business plan
3. The restructuring, technical documentation and integration of the LE:NOTRE and ECLAS web sites
4. The updating, editing and making available the course unit information to prospective ERASMUS Exchange Students
5. The development of a European Urban Landscape Partnership involving Universities and Municipal Authorities across the continent
6. The completion of the contributions to the five lines of the ‘Tuning Project’ as a ‘Core Area’ and the publication of the results
7. The publication of the Papers contributed to the analysis stage of the project by the representatives of neighbouring academic disciplines
8. Preparation of new publicity and learning material for internal and external dissemination and awareness of project outcomes

Of these projects three are planned to be the focus of three main meetings of the Network which are planned for the coming year (in contrast to the one annual meeting organised in each of the previous years of LE:NOTRE). These are:

• The new academic journal - ‘Journal of Landscape Architecture’ (Autumn meeting 2005)
• The European Urban Landscape Network (Spring meeting 2006)
• The completion of the ‘Tuning Project’ for European landscape architecture education (Summer meeting 2006).

The exact dates and host institutions will be announced shortly. The LE:NOTRE web site, its tools and resources will also be an important focus of all three meetings and workshops on using the web site will be an important feature of each of the three meetings. The other five themes of LE:NOTRE+PLUS will be covered in all of these meetings, worked on throughout the year as a whole and through the web site.

Although we are holding three Network meetings during the Dissemination Project, funding will still only be available to cover the costs on one person attending one of the three meetings. Of course self-funded participation of more than one person per member institution will of course not only be possible but very welcome.