Community-university engagement in a time of COVID-19

Abstract

Dr Budd Hall and Dr Rajesh Tandon reflect on how COVID-19 is reshaping community-university engagement, collapsing the physical boundary between town and gown as students and academics work from home. The pandemic has exposed a stark digital divide, with universities in high-income countries far better placed to sustain online teaching than those in low-income countries. One familiar approach treats science and academic expertise as the sole authority in a crisis. Another approach is gaining ground through the pandemic instead, one that brings local knowledge, citizen science and community wisdom into direct partnership with formal research, so findings reach the public faster than conventional academic channels allow. The paper suggests this shift tests whether higher education is genuinely committed to its communities or only performing engagement. It closes with practical directions for the future, from redesigning curricula around field study to reviewing knowledge systems through an ecology of epistemologies.