Presentation made at the Symposium on “Mainstreaming university-community research partnerships” at Indian Habitat Center on 9th April 2015, Organized by PRIA.
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Cristina Escrigas - Community based research Symposium PRIA India
1. www.guninetwork.org
Symposium on “Mainstreaming university-
community research partnerships”
New Delhi, 9 April,
Knowledge, engagement & higher education:
Contributing to social change
Cristina Escrigas,
Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi),
Barcelona, Spain
2. www.guninetwork.org
• GUNi is an international network supported by
UNESCO, the United Nations University (UNU)
and the Association of Catalan Public
Universities (ACUP).
• The Report is a collective work.
» 73 authors from 34 countries of the world regions have
contributed to this edition.
• Dr. Rajesh Tandon and Dr. Budd Hall have been
the guest editors.
• Is a product of three years research,
consultations, academic seminars and an
international conference in 2013.
5 Higher Education in the World Report
Knowledge, Engagement and Higher Education:
Contributing to Social Change
3. www.guninetwork.org
Higher Education in the World 5 aims to:
a) Analyze the concept of community university engagement and social
responsibility.
b) Provide a regional and thematic map about how HEIs are engaged with
society.
c) Identify how the social actors are involved in the engagement practices,
including leadership, participation and decision making process.
d) Propose steps for advancing the contribution of CUE.
e) Offer a toolbox for higher education practitioners through examples of
good practices and resources to move forward.
5. www.guninetwork.org
• A new conception of the relationship with
communities as equal partners.
• A new conception of what is and isn't knowledge,
given equal value to the different kinds and
sources of knowledge.
• That knowledge societies are about apply
knowledge for sustainable and inclusive
development.
• That knowledge should be measured through its
capacity to intervene in reality.
• New perceptions of what societies could be.
• New perceptions on what education should
mean.
EngagementEngagement
The engaged
practices have
several
common
characteristics
6. Propósito de GUNi
www.guninetwork.org
“The main
contribution of civic
engagement in
terms of social
responsibility is the
idea of serving
society at large;
dealing with real
problems of
common people and
communities, under
a vision of ethics
and values.”
Social responsibility of HE
• The knowledge economy versus a knowledge
democracy.
• The pressure for profitability versus the social
value of knowledge.
• Social and sustainable relevance versus
competition and competitiveness.
• Deep and complex understanding of reality.
7. www.guninetwork.org
Main recommendations and agenda for action
Transformative knowledge to drive social change.
Recognizing the existence of multiple epistemologies and ways of
knowing
from a mono-culture of scientific knowledge to an ecology of
knowledge;
from rational knowledge to integral human knowledge;
from descriptive knowledge to knowledge for intervention;
from partial knowledge to a holistic and complex knowledge;
from an isolated creation of knowledge to a social co-creation of
knowledge;
from a static use of knowledge to a dynamic and creative knowledge.
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8. www.guninetwork.org
Elements of a vision
Community-university engagement informs the education
process, linking engagement within the teaching and research
dimensions.
HE have to go beyond educating professionals to educating citizens with
ethical awareness and civic commitment that exchange value with society
through a professional activity.
It implies new ways of educating that demands deeper changes
New approaches for learning based on participatory and problem-oriented
methods.
Disciplinary studies should make connections with real world and real-time
issues.
New, critical and reflexive learning systems need also to be incorporated.
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9. www.guninetwork.org
Elements of a vision
Partnerships: establishing community-university dialogue
Stronger relationships with civic associations and with social movements
to co-create knowledge.
New approaches to knowledge mobilization and creation are needed
between institutions and their communities related to real problems.
Greater coordination between governments, civil society, educative
institutions, enterprises and the private sector for social transformation.
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10. Propósito de GUNi
www.guninetwork.org
In looking to the
future we are
calling for a world
were a new set of
partnership
principles are the
rule rather than
the exception.
Community organisations are calling for new forms
of partnership
• Based on principles of respect and recognition of the
differences of knowledge cultures in communities
and universities.
• Based on long-term.
• The diverse sources of leadership, roles in
knowledge production and organizing systems of the
projects are accepted.
• Participatory action research and Science Shop
experiences worldwide are two ways to move forward.
11. Propósito de GUNi
www.guninetwork.org
There are a
range of
actions that
would
contribute to
a more
engaged
knowledge
system:
Elements of a vision
• Making new knowledge available on an open-access
basis while improving to its application.
• Sustaining discussions amongst diverse knowledge
sources in relation to the grand challenges of our
communities.
• Generating knowledge strategies for informing
political decision-making that affect larch groups of
populations local or global.
• Creating cosmopolitan centres of culture, building
bridges and connecting different cultures and
sources of knowledge.
12. www.guninetwork.org
Elements of a vision
HEIs role in Addressing Major Global Issues
The diverse levels of communities are interdependent and no real solutions
will be sustainably reached if we don’t work on all them simultaneously.
To link research agendas to collective challenges and the global development
agenda, making evident connections between academic activity and societal
needs.
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13. www.guninetwork.org
Elements of a vision
New policies: higher education and the state
• Professional careers in HEIs
• Policy climate within the academic world about how to recognize
excellence in CBR and engaged scholarship is advancing.
• Governmental policies
• Increasing interest in these collaborative co-construction research
projects worldwide.
The role of networks
• Numerous national, regional and global networks have emerged with
an overall objective of building the movement of CUE.
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14. www.guninetwork.org
We are excited about the prospects of
deepening the contributions of transformative
knowledge in the world today.
We are fully aware of the potential of higher
education to make sustained and meaningful
contributions towards identifying and
catalyzing a social change agenda for the
future of all humanity.
Thank you
15. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
C. Jordi Girona 31
Edifici TG (S-1)
E- 08034 - Barcelona (Spain)
+34 93.401.70.09
Fax +34 93.401.08.55
info@guninetwork.org
www.guninetwork.org
Hinweis der Redaktion
Who do we recognize as legitimate knowledge producers in our societies?
Transformative and democratic approaches to knowledge democracy refers to acknowledging the existence of multiple epistemologies or ways of knowing, affirming that knowledge is both created and represented in multiple forms.
We need to challenge ideas about ‘dominant knowledge’ residing in the hands of experts and engage with the majority in ways that make connections between knowledge, action and consciousness.
We also have to question the dominance of the rational-scientific paradigm as the only valid knowledge system. We need to understand the relationships between scientific knowledge and other forms of knowledge and reconsider the value we attribute to different types and sources of knowledge.
We need to go deeper in questioning the idea of an absolute truth, dealing openly with complexity and uncertainty.
This implies six deep changes in the way we perceive value and create knowledge: To move
from a mono-culture of scientific knowledge to an ecology of knowledge;
from rational knowledge to integral human knowledge;
from descriptive knowledge to knowledge for intervention;
from partial knowledge to a holistic and complex knowledge;
from an isolated creation of knowledge to a social co-creation of knowledge;
from a static use of knowledge to a dynamic and creative knowledge.
HE systems worldwide have to go beyond educating professionals to educating citizens with an ethical awareness and civic commitment.
This deep change in the purpose of education implies a change in the curriculum contents, in the educative offer and in the conception of what a degree is and what it is preparing students for, that shouldn’t be any more disciplinary.
On the other hand, today we know that reality is complex, that any phenomenon, problem or situation we live or create is multidimensional.
It implies new ways of educating that demands deeper changes in pedagogies.
New approaches for learning based on dialogical, co-learning, participatory and problem-oriented methods are also required.
Disciplinary studies should make connections with real world and real-time issues in the future.
New, critical and reflexive learning systems need also to be incorporated.
Citizen groups, associations, NGOs, not-for-profit research institutes and independent think tanks, as civil society actors, have taken a leading role in identifying, analysing and articulating national and transnational debates on positive social transformation in the last few decades.
Higher education institutions should establish stronger relationships with civic associations, and with social movements in order to co-create knowledge.
New approaches to knowledge mobilisation and transfer are needed between institutions and their communities related to real problems.
Greater coordination is needed between governments, civil society, educative institutions and the private sector in order to achieve this social transformation.
Participatory action research and Science Shop experiences worldwide are two of many promising ways to move forward.
Community can also apply more broadly to a sense of communal responsibility on a national or even international scale.
Higher Education has the opportunity, in collaboration with civil society and other knowledge workers to lead society in generating knowledge to address global challenges such as food security, climate change, water management, intercultural dialogue, renewable energy and public health and the care of infants, toddlers and their families…
Linking research agendas to collective challenges and the global development agenda, making evident connections between academic activity and societal needs, is also a challenge for near future.
This approach implies redefining multiple and simultaneous spaces that all could be call ‘community’ at diverse levels. We must assume that these diverse levels of communities are interdependent and no real solutions will be sustainably reached if we don’t work on all them simultaneously.
Engaged scholarship and community based research further complicate the knowledge-engagement-career picture. The evidence is that the policy climate within the academic world about how to recognize excellence in community-based research and engaged scholarship is advancing. We are confident that these new ways of working will in time drive a change in the ways that we measure the impact of scholarship. The policies to support these changes are already emerging and will continue to do so.
Numerous national, regional, sectorial and global networks have emerged over the past years with an overall objective of building the movement of community university engagement for purposes of being better able to contribute to meeting the critical issues of our times. These networks have several goals: building the institutional capacity for CUE, building capacity amongst community groups, development knowledge systems, policy development and advocacy and providing opportunities for collaboration. The constellation of CUE networks provides a kind of circulation system for ideas, good practices, policy language and simply inspiration.