The EPIC Network
GAN works with the EPIC Network (Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities Network) to increase city resilience through building university-city partnerships globally. This pioneering initiative draws upon the knowledge and expertise residing in the faculties and students of local universities to address real-life issues of urban sustainability and adaptation. The Chronicle of Higher Education called the model “one of higher education’s most successful and comprehensive service-learning programs.”
In 2016, GAN began working with the EPIC network and other partners to extend the model around the world. With the support from the GAN Secretariat, 1 global and 2 regional trainings were held. Over 61 pairs of local government and university officials attended and joined the EPIC-N. By the end of 2017, a successful EPIC-Africa network had been launched with several city-university partnerships established, including the EPIC Durban program in South Africa that resulted in the development of the city’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Response plans.
In 2021, GAN significantly supported the launch of the EPIC-Asia network and virtual EPIC-Asia Workshop, where representatives from 32 Asian city and university partnerships participated. This event was developed in collaboration with EPIC-N, GAN and Global Change System for Analysis, Research and Training (START) with the support of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan. Following the event, EPIC-N and GAN provided seed grants to a portion of the cities, based on a competitive proposal development process, as well as technical support to assist the city-university teams in the completion of their implementation plans.
Using the EPIC Model to match cities’ needs with learning priorities of university and college students allow for a broad spectrum of sustainability issues to be addressed in a win-win situation—students gain hands-on experience, allowing them to develop professionally, while local municipalities can leverage the often-untapped expertise of local universities to tackle their sustainability challenges at low cost. The EPIC-Network is a collection of more than 70 institutions currently implementing the EPIC Model approach, and the network members have completed over 1,700 projects to date.
Find out more about EPIC here.
