This conference will be EUCEN's 27th such event and will take the form of the presentation of major papers coupled with a series of related Breakout Sessions, Workshops and Special Interest Colloquiums. It takes place at a time of major developments in the area of Lifelong Learning across Europe coupled with major socio/economic and political developments such as the EU's enlargement process, the perennial talk of the move to the knowledge economy, and the challenges being faced by the move from manufacturing to the service sector. The catalyst to these transitions will be as the OECD has termed it the “new learning economy”, matching learning attainment to economic performance.

The concept of the Learning Region is still relatively new. However, despite this there is a growing body of research, which highlights that when all the stakeholders in a region work and collaborate together the results, are excellent. Through this conference it is hoped to disseminate latest developments in the field. For the Learning Region to be developed it must incorporate all of the stakeholders including schools, local authorities, industry, further education and higher education. They must not be single entities with their own agendas but rather a coalition based on parity of esteem with the objective of ensuring that the sum of the parts must be greater than the whole. In other words the initiative must generate significant added value.

The planned conference in Limerick in June 2004 has “added value” as its fundamental objective. It will be drawing on the experiences of regions who have commenced on this road as an extension of the Learning City concept or who have decided that the region is a better starting point for this development. It will have keynote addresses from across the spectrum of the stakeholders.

A major strand of the conference will focus on the dissemination of the results of the R3L Project. The European Networks to Promote the Local and Regional Dimension of Lifelong Learning Initiative was established in 2002 (i) to help develop good practice on issues relating to the "learning region"; (ii) to encourage a fruitful transnational sharing and exchange of experience; and (iii) to promote the development of European networks between learning regions as a means of placing European co-operation in the lifelong learning field on a more durable and sustainable footing.

The conference will offer delegates the opportunity to hear keynote addresses from leading experts in the area and through a series of related breakout sessions it will facilitate detailed debate on the central themes. These breakout sessions will be discipline based and will cover key areas such as work-based education and community based initiatives and the role of ICT in the development of the learning region.