Since many years IHS- EUR aims to provide courses in Rotterdam for participants from all over the world. The topics that are taught at IHS- EUR are designed to tackle global and local issues in the field of urban management and development in an international environment that includes participants from diverse countries. Many participants to IHS programmes were able to finance their study with financial aid from the Netherlands government, international fellowships or with support from IHS. Others have not found similar opportunities to come to IHS and have been disappointed. IHS- EUR wishes to share its knowledge with all those who are looking for it and has been working on solutions to reach more people.

In 2009 IHS- EUR has started the development of new Distance Learning courses to meet the needs of potential students who are unable to finance the more traditional courses. The first three months course online "Innovations in Financing Cities", will start on 11 October 2010.

Online Interactivity
The course is designed to be a 15 weeks instructor-led course with modules on land value capture, public-private partnerships, accessing capital markets and remittances. It will include a number of interactive activities that facilitate peer-learning among an international group of cohorts through the use of online discussion forums, role-playing games, wikis and group exercises. The goal is to expose to the participants all possible ways to finance large urban projects and to provide them with the underlying principles of each financing innovation so that they can improvise them to match the needs of their own cities.

The international outlook of the course leaves space for a local approach of the tools. Participants are challenged with their own specific historical, political, economic and institutional context in their city to apply the principles learned in the course in design of a financing scheme for a proposed public project.

Deadline for application: 1 August 2010
Find more information on www.ihs.nl; apply online through www.ihs.nl/login. Contact Anirban Pal, Course Coordinator ([email protected]; +31 104089874) for more information.

IHS- EUR
The Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) is based in Rotterdam, the Netherland on the campus of Erasmus University Rotterdam. IHS is staffed with an interdisciplinary team of professionals. Since its establishment in 1958, more than 7000 urban professionals from 120 different nations have made their way into IHS classrooms to take part in a post-graduate diploma course, a Master's course or a PhD programme. IHS provides high quality and relevant services; these are assured by the fact that all staff are actively involved in training, research and advisory and technical assistance projects in multiple countries. In 2007 IHS won the Scroll of Honour Award from UN-HABITAT for 'leading the way as a global centre of excellence and knowledge through its high quality teaching programmes in housing, urban management and urban environmental management and planning'.