Invitation to Spanish National Committee of IGU

On 20 March 2019, the Jornada de Internacionalización de la Geografía Española conference, organized by the Spanish IGU National Committee, was held at the Instituto Geográfico Nacional in Madrid. Initiated by IGU Vice President Prof. Rubén C. Lois González, Spanish representatives of the IGU commissions and members of different Spanish geographical organizations debated internationalization strategies of Spanish geography.

In the keynote lecture of the conference, Prof. Benno Werlen presented the concept of "Global Understanding" as a new paradigm of geographical research and education. Together with members of the IGU Commission "Geographical Education", the participants discussed ways to better adapt geographical education and geography teaching to the living conditions of the 21st century. As Benno Werlen emphasized in his talk, "one of the most important and distinguished tasks of geography is to prepare citizens for the new geographical conditions and to enable them to actively shape new geographical realities without being oriented towards backward-looking ideas."