This October meeting of the Governing Board of the Observatory benefitted from wide on site presence of representative of the 16 member states and 2 observer states, along with representatives of the Scientific Advisory Council but also of the Council of Europe’s CD-EDU.

The meeting was opened by Mr Matjaž Gruden, Director of Democratic Participation, highlighting the current geopolitical context and its consequences on Europe and on Council of Europe’s work. History education plays an essential part in the education for democracy - with a political consensus on this  confirmed by the recently published Report by the high-level reflection group on CoE future priorities.

The 5^th meeting of the OHTE Governing Board was the occasion to gain an overview of the Observatory’s activities in 2022, the preparations for the 2nd Annual Conference “A Future without History Teaching?” (1-2 December 2022, Strasbourg) and the advancement on the 1^st Report on the State of History Teaching in Europe.

The attention of representatives was focused mainly on the 1^st Thematic Report of the Observatoryshowing “Pandemics and Natural Disasters as reflected in History Teaching” and its 10 key findings – which will be presented and discussed during the upcoming annual conference.

The selection of the topic of the 2^nd Thematic Report, was also made – based on 5 proposals advanced by the Scientific Advisory Council represented by Mr Raul Cârstocea, Vice-Chair. During a constructive exchange of views,most of the Governing Board members supported the idea of exploring the topic of “Economic Crises in History Teaching”. The CDEDU representative stressed that this topic would be complementary to the ongoing work of the Education Department.