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Project Leader	Dr. Y. YAMAGATA National Institute for Environmental Studies Japan Environmental Agency, 16-2 Onogawa Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0053 JAPAN Tel: +81-298-50-2545 Fax: +81-298-50-2572 Email: yamagata@nies.go.jp
Funding	US$ 25,000
Participating countries	Participants from the following countries were funded: Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and P. R. China. Participating countries, funded from sources other than APN included Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, Kenya, Macedonia, Mexico, Nigeria, Romania, Russia, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, and Zambia.

Brief introduction and background
The programme of IHDP is designed around three main objectives of the promotion of HD-GEC research, research capacity building, and developing international scientific networks.  START, co-sponsored by the three Global Environmental Change Programmes (IGBP, WCRP and IHDP) also has the objective of capacity building. The IHDW events contribute directly to the objectives of APN, IHDP and START. Global change issues will remain high on both the scientific and political agendas of the 21st century.  Appropriate assessment of these issues cannot occur without a greater involvement by the human and social science communities than has been evident to date. We need to provide opportunities for a new generation of young human and social-science scholars, as well as scholars trained in interdisciplinary research and those who can bridge the natural and social sciences, especially from developing countries, to enhance their capacity to deal with - and to achieve greater access to - this exciting field. These scholars need a forum in which to discuss how they are addressing the challenges of carrying out interdisciplinary research on the human dimensions of global environmental change. From 2-15 June 2002, IHDP and START hosted the third bi-annual International Human Dimensions Workshop (IHDW) for young scientists. Thirty two young scholars from 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and for the first time from Russia and Eastern Europe were selected from 160 applicants to explore the workshop theme: "Urbanisation and the Transition to Sustainability."

Outline of activities conducted
The main objective of the workshop was to provide a comprehensive and integrated perspective on issues related to Global Environmental Change in urban areas. The workshop encouraged the speakers and participants from different scientific backgrounds to develop an interdisciplinary approach to the workshop theme. Different complementary components, such as lectures, expert panels and individual projects formed the basis of the organisational structure of the workshop. The lectures and panels given by well-known scholars in the field exposed the participants to a wide range of topics reflecting the complex and dynamic range of societal and environmental interactions that take place in cities, from the local to the global level: natural and social dimensions of GEC, regional processes of urbanisation, urban processes, social shaping of urban space, governance, environmental problems, climate, vulnerability, and water.

The last two days of the workshop were dedicated to the presentations of the participants. Weeks before the start of the workshop the participants were asked to select an individual case study from their country on a topic related to the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change in cities. Having brought their own empirical data sets to the workshop, the participants had the chance to apply the information and knowledge gathered from the workshop directly to their own individual projects. The majority of the presentations at the end of the workshop demonstrated a clear step towards an integrated perspective of human dimensions of Global Environmental Change. The majority of the participants expressed a strong desire to expand their research to include new dimensions.

This successful outcome was the result of a framework that placed a lot of emphasis on communication and interaction amongst the present scholars. All invited lecturers were asked to stay for some extra time to give sufficient room for interaction and discussions. The scholars advised and commented on the individual case studies of the participants. Additionally two data specialist from CIESIN and the Centre for Environmental Systems Research were present during the major time of the workshop. After giving an introduction on Arc View and GIS, they assisted with individual data problems and computer questions of the participants. Lively discussions during breaks, and in the evenings when participants and speakers were working together in the computer room, proved that the organisational framework was working successfully.

Outcomes and products
One important result of the workshop is the construction of a strong network of young and senior scholars working in the field of GEC and urbanisation. A list server has been installed in the meantime to facilitate communications within the group. The workshop homepage, <http://www.ihdp.uni-bonn.de/ihdw02/ihdw02.html>, offers information on the contents of the workshop, e.g. the workshop agenda with links to the presentation of participants and speakers, summaries of participants' case studies, participants list, speakers list, and links to other WebPages related to Urbanisation and GEC. A hard copy  report of the workshop, which will concentrate on the case studies of the participants, is foreseen to be published by March 2003.

Future directions and follow-up work
IHDP actively engages the workshop participants to apply for the Human Dimensions Open Meeting in Montreal (16-18 October 2003) with the aim, to organize a follow-up meeting. There will be a call for the best case study among the participants of the IHDW 2002. The two best papers will be selected to participate in a panel of the IHDP urbanisation scoping team at the Open Science Meeting. Some Participants are interested in acting as contact points for national HD communities in their countries, aiming at the further development of already existing, or establishing new, national committees. IHDP's already successful Seed Grant Initiative was suggested as a mechanism to assist in this. Finally, IHDP offers partnerships for future proposal writing to the participants of the IHDW 2002, i.e., that we connect them with senior scientists, who are willing to assist in the process of drafting proposals.