develop a satellite-based continuing professional development programme between leading edge researchers and scientists and managers in industry. (EUROpace). He then commenced his more academic career as UNESCO-IBM Professor of Information Technology at Southampton University on secondment from IBM, a progression which led, on retirement from IBM, to a wider career as professor of lifelong learning in several European universities. He was an honorary Professor of Lifelong Learning at the University of Stirling in the UK when he developed the Learning Ladder, and has written several books on lifelong learning and learning cities and regions as templates for future development. His output also includes downloadable learning lessons on most aspects of learning city development. During the 1990s he was President of the European Lifelong Learning Initiative, writing well-received books on Lifelong Learning (Lifelong Learning – Taylor and Francis/Routledge, 1996) and the burgeoning concept of Learning Cities (Making Lifelong Learning Work - Learning Cities for a Learning Century – Taylor and Francis, 1999 and 2003). As a result, he is regarded as one of the world's leading experts in these fields. His books have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Lithuanian and other languages. He has been a visiting professor of lifelong learning in several European universities – Sheffield Hallam, Napier Edinburgh, Stirling, ESC Toulouse – managing international developmental projects with Universities from several countries, and has delivered keynote and invited speeches at conferences in more than 30 countries world-wide. He has advised International Governmental Organisations – EC, OECD, UNESCO – and helped the latter to establish a Global Network of Learning Cities which it is hoped will transform the way in which cities perceive and manage a more prosperous, stable and sustainable future. In 2001 he wrote the European Commission's policy document on the Local and Regional Dimension of Lifelong Learning (Learning Cities and Regions). He has also been active as a consultant in PASCAL, the global observatory on Place Management, Social Capital and Learning Regions. He continued to lead European projects and to speak at conferences until his retirement at the age of 80 in 2016. He now lives in the Pyrennees of France where he writes books (The Conflent Tales, Amazon 2016; Le Conflent Sublime, 2021, Amazon), poetry in English and French, some of it referencing his work in Learning Cities and Leaning Nations. Works of poetry include 'Poems for a Thinking Nation' Poems for a Safer Planet, and