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Professor Maroš Finka, an expert who worked with UN Habitat III, and Head of SPECTRA – Center of Excellence of the European Union and Director of Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, was the guest speaker in the Kandy City (Sri Lanka) development workshop under the auspieces of World Bank’s Sri Lanka Strategic Cities Development Project. Under the project, urban services and public urban spaces are to be improved in the city. This includes traffic improvements, such as the rehabilitation of selected by-pass roads, and establishment and improvements of selected public transport facilities and traffic management measures. The project involves the augmentation and rehabilitation of the municipal water supply system; rehabilitation of major drains; urban upgrading, including the improvement of selected streetscapes and public spaces. It also aims to restore and repurpose historic and landmark buildings. Professor Finka drew the attention of planners to the environment and the heritage. „Current trends in the management and planning processes show the growing importance of landscape planning, especially after 2000“ underlined prof. Finka.

Spectra, Centre of Excellence and Institute of Management STU (where Spectra is based) will organise Day for Public. This event will be held on Thursday, 15th February 2018 in Spectra Centre in Bratislava (Vazovova 5, room 5-1, 5th floor) at 1.00 PM. The main goal of the event is to introduce the acredited study programmes of the Institute of Management, with special emphasis on Spatial planning. Showcases of the work of the current students ("City as a Personality") will be included. We are looking forward to meet you at Spectra, Centre of Excellence.

"Spectra, Centre of Excellence was during 22nd-23rd of January 2018 a venue of TRANSGREEN project working meeting.   Experts from fields connected to integrated transport planning congregated in Bratislava to focus on developing a key TRANSGREEN output: the Guidelines on Integrated Transport Development. Seven countries were represented in the meeting, showing the high interest in bringing input in a document that would influence the way transport planning is done in the CEE region.

Spectra, Centre of Excellence was on 23rd November 2017 the venue of the lecture of PhDr.Peter Pleva, speaker and preventionist of the Municipal Police Department of City of Bratislava. Dr.Pleva met the students of spatial planning master course and dedicated his presentation to problems of public safety policy with relation to specific citizens groups in the territory of Bratislava. His contribution was focused on the specifics of endangered social groups, issues related to street working and best examples from the municipal level practice. Students appreciated the following discussion. Spectra, Centre of Excellence is looking forward to future cooperation.

The Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy in cooperation with the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe confered the Danubius Award 2017 to prof. Maroš Finka, PhD, Head of the Spectra, Centre of Excellence. This award was created in 2011 with the intention to honour persons with extraordinary achievements in their scientific activity and output in relation to the Danube Region. Within a rotation system in one year achievements in the fields of humanities, social and cultural studies are awarded, in the following year achievements in the fields of life sciences. The Danubius Award is a contribution towards implementing the EU Strategy for the Danube Region which has been endorsed by the European Council in 2011, with the aim of giving higher visibility to the Danube region also as an area for collaborative interdisciplinary research.

Young researcher and PhD. student Tomáš Szabo, a member of Spectra, Centre of Excellence, prepared new web portal E-PRO – an online system for municipal offices, serving for elaboration and finalisation of strategic documents. His solution is unique and provides a helpful tool for the representatives of Slovak municipalities who are interested in further increasing of efficiency of strategic planning on local level.

Spectra, Centre of Excellence took part on the annual Spa-ce.net conference, which had been held from 13th till 15th September 2017 in Sofia. The headline of the conference was "The Role Of Public Sector In Local Economic And Territorial Development In Central, Eatern And South Eastern Europe. Members of Spectra, Centre of Excellence participated in programme, prof. M.Finka presented a keynote under the title "Changing role of public sector in spatial development strategies / Problems and challenges for local and regional development in Central and Eastern European Countries after 2020" and Assoc. Prof. M.Jaššo presented paper "Leadership in the current contexts of Central European Planning Culture". Overall, 19 presentations from 9 countries were presented and Spectra, Centre of Excellence is preparing a monography within Springer Book Series, consisting from contributions from this event in collaboration with European Alliance for Innovation (EAI).

Spectra, Centre of Excellence, City of Bratislava, City of Brno and Slovak University of Technology (STU) were co-organizing the final workshop within the MUNISS project. The event was held at 31st May 2017. The official part (presentation of students work) was held from 10.00 AM in the Mirror Hall of the Mucipal Office of Bratislava. Second part of the programme, starting at 13,00 PM, was externalised in form of the happening in the Obchodná street, in front of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Presentations of the students work, public discussion (Mr. I. Nesrovnal, mayor of the City of Bratislava, Mr. Kacer, Mayor of the City of Brno, prof. M.Finka, Head of the Spectra, Centre of Excellence and I.Konrád, chief architect of the City of Bratislava), planning game and various other activities belonged to the highlights of the event.

Our colleagues Assoc. Prof. Marián Zajko (Head of the Institute of Management), dr. Vladimír Ondrejička, dr. Silvia Ondrejičková and students of spatial planning took part in the MUNISS project workshop, which has been held on 23rd February in the Municipal Office of Bratislava. The event has been opened by the speech of the chief architect of City of Bratislava, dr. Ingrid Konrád. Main topic of this meeting was the international student competition dedicated to the elaboration of SMART City strategies for the cities of Bratislava and Brno. This competition has been now shifted to the creative phase represented by valuable contributions of renown experts in the field of city development.

Team of Spectra, Centre of Excellence and STU (Prof. Finka, Assoc. Prof. Petríková, Dr. Ondrejička, Dr. Jamečný, Dr. Ondrejičková) is co-organising series of 8 workshops in Sri Lanka cities Colombo and Kandy. The events under the cover of EU ERASMUS+ are dedicated to the New Urban Agenda approved in October 2016 during UNO Habitat III summit in Quito.