PACE is a project led by the UnitedWorldCollege of the Adriatic which is being developed within the framework of the Adriatic New Neighbourhood Programme INTERREG-CARDS/PHARE in collaboration with a wide range of partners throughout the Adriatic region: in Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro.

PACE (“peace” in Italian) stands for Project Agency Cooperation Education. The project aims to foster the potential of education as a vehicle for promoting institution building and as an instrument of reconciliation in post-conflict societies and in those facing challenges of social and cultural change. Specifically, the project aims to:

• organize professional development for secondary school teachers from the Adriatic countries;
• re-establish cooperation and dialogue among teachers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Italy;
• raise the quality of education according to “European standards”.

The project is being implemented through collaboration between bodies, such as schools, universities, ministries and NGOs across Adriatic countries, that have not traditionally worked together.

Naturally, teachers are central to such an ambitious undertaking.They work together in PACE with educational institutions and agencies in partner countries to foster innovation within the respective national educational systems.

The innovation takes the form of a set of core beliefs and common strategies of teaching and learning, the means whereby some fundamental themes (“Big Ideas”) can be explored and engaged with in a pilot project in partner countries, within existing school curricula.