Community-University Engagement
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://knowledgedemocracydspace.com/handle/123456789/1069
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item Community-university engagement in a time of COVID-19(2020) Tandon, Rajesh; Hall, Budd LDr 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.Item International collaboration for changing the culture of research: The UNESCO Chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education(Autonomie Locali e Servizi Sociali, 2020-04-01) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, RajeshThis paper traces the development of the UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, established through the long-standing collaboration of Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon. It explains how the Chair promotes community-based participatory research by strengthening partnerships between universities, civil society organizations, and local communities across the Global South and the excluded North. This work includes global studies, open-access publications, international networks, and the K4C Consortium. Engaged research also supports the SDGs by fostering knowledge co-creation and socially responsible, locally grounded higher education. The paper argues that transforming research culture demands collaboration, knowledge democracy, and closer academia-community links to tackle social and environmental challenges.Item Bridging knowledge cultures: A guide for community practitioners and community organizations(UNESCO Chair, 2024) Lepore, Walter; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, RajeshThis guide by Walter Lepore, Budd Hall and Rajesh Tandon is about helping community practitioners and organisations build stronger research partnerships with universities. It draws on the larger Bridging Knowledge Cultures project, which studied ten K4C hubs across Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Colombia and Canada. The book explores partnerships in areas such as fishing communities, maternal health care, waste management, and early childhood education. Community knowledge is rooted in lived experience and oral tradition, while academic knowledge is typically validated through peer review and disciplinary standards, a gap that often leaves community knowledge undervalued within formal academic settings. It closes with practical recommendations for practitioners facilitating collaboration between communities and universities, pointing to trust, mutual respect, and the recognition of practices like storytelling as legitimate forms of knowledge
