Current Activities

IPEN really became active in the first half of 2017, and since then IPEN has:

• Undertaken and published the results of a first global survey of permaculture teachers to establish needs, gaps and priorities, across different languages and cultures, the valuable results of which you can read here:

• Produced a selection of Case Studies on successful Lush Spring Prize projects with high positive impacts in regeneration, agroeclogy and permaculture with more steadily being produced with the aim of having 20+ case studies and good practice covering key areas of permaculture education and demonstration by Spring 2019
• Been adopted as the Education Working Group for EuPN, the European Permaculture Network (EuPN: Europe’s network of national and regional permaculture associations and organisations) – the emergence of EuPN followed on from the very successful European Permaculture Teachers partnership project, an excellent example of international education collaboration
• Partnered with a) 9 other EuPN members to apply for funding to start a 2 year European Regenerative Leadership Programme in 2019 to support and develop permaculture pioneers and leaders in Europe, and the organisations they are part of, including its young pioneers; b) Ecolise and 9 of its members to apply for 3 years of funding to create a blended learning platform for transformative education focused on community led learning on sustainability and climate action. 
• Developed plans to identify, promote and support iLAND Centres as permaculture learning & demonstration projects engaged in significant education activity (particularly in countries where English is not the first language) including developing an initial iLAND Working Group – see iLAND Centre pages here
• Developed a Phase 1 project plan to address priority needs and gaps in permaculture education identified by the survey;
• Built an initial contacts database, which is steadily growing;
• Delivered funded tasks within the 52 Climate Actions project, coordinated by PIRN (Permaculture International Research Network) including a project to pilot Climate Action Training alongside Retrosuburbia training and events, led by Permaculture South Australia;
• Is collaborating with Ethical Consumer Research Association and the Permaculture Association (Britain) to seek to develop Ethical Lifestyle Training in 2019;
• Helped plan and organise a 1/2 day Permaculture & International Development taster event on 18th April 2018 (in London), and supported a new Permaculture for Development Workers course delivered in September 2018, led by Chris Evans and Gisele Henriques;
• Participated in the formation of ‘Permaculture CoLab’ with this IPEN website being a pilot project for collaborative working within the CoLab structure, with the design and development of this new IPEN website in 2019 being a first pilot project for CoLab’s Digital Circle to establish effective ways of working that benefit the global permaculture movement; IPEN is also active in the Colab’s Translation Circle, and will help in the first work of this group to help translate valuable permaculture education resources.
• Launched this website to make valuable resources available and accessible to a large number of people involved in the development of permaculture education systems and activities;
• Presented a session on IPEN to engage input from a wide audience and contributed to related sessions at IPC2017 India – see ipen_ipc_2017_presentation.pdf – and participated very actively in the 2018 European Permaculture Convergence and Australian Permaculture Convergence
• Secured £13,500 funding (from Ecoforest Garden Trust), 50% of this will directly support demonstration permaculture projects (iLAND Centres); IPEN was also selected as a winner in the Young Project category for the 2018 Lush Spring Prize (£20,000)
• Identified a range of funding opportunities for support of a) IPEN core activities, and b) collaborative projects with partners.

Planned or potential future activities include the following:

• Create a strong and diverse global IPEN core team with a large active network of contributors (i.e. through Working Groups) and supporters.
• Build and maintain an interactive online platform for permaculture educators and learners i.e. further developing this website
• Translate, adapt and create teaching resources across languages for the majority world, including core curriculum guides for existing courses and new courses – IPEN is working as part of Colab to develop a permaculture translation network.
• Help to establish international Diploma and Teacher Training systems for those countries where no Diploma or Teacher Training system exists, to complement and learn from countries with well-established Diploma and Teacher Training systems.
• Promote and support best practice models for post-course/ PDC follow-up and develop ways to monitor and improve the effectiveness of permaculture education.
• Support the formation of independent teachers’ guilds.
• Determine and agree an appropriate long-term structure and legal status for IPEN in 2019.

ipen_ipc_2017_presentation.pdf