Socially Responsible Higher Education
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Item Bridging the gap between the researcher and the community: PRIA’s engagements in promoting community based research and social responsibility in higher educational institutions(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2014) Tandon, Rajesh; Singh, Wafa; Srinivasan, SumitraPRIA has engaged with academia in a multitude of interventions, bringing community and practitioner knowledge into the portals of traditional research institutions and processes. By doing this, PRIA has helped Higher Educational Institutions (HEls) realize their social responsibility towards a community's needs and aspirations. This document traces PRIA's work in promoting community engagement within HEls in India and beyond. The experience, garnered over three decades, have been classified into six categories to highlight the different forms PRIA's interventions as a facilitator have taken to build bridges between the world of formal research, the practitioner knowledge of civil society actors and the experiential knowledge of local communities. The experiences discussed in this paper are not intended to be comprehensive; a few specific interventions are described under each category to illustrate the nature of the engagements fostered and the practices promoted.Item India launch of the UNESCO Chair in community-based research and social responsibility in higher education(UNESCO Chair, 2012-12) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, RajeshItem Civil engagement in higher education and its role in Human & Social Development(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2007-07) Tandon, RajeshOver the past century the world has seen many social, economic and political transformations. It has transformed from a largely colonial era to a largely democratic one. Yet, while democratization of political culture guaranteed citizens’ rights and freedom, it did not result in democratization of learning and knowledge production. The change in education systems has been slow in the coming. Economic trends and civil society movements in the past decade have been facilitating changes in perceptions of what constitutes ‘knowledge’ and in redefining the mission and mandate of HEIs. With increasing demands on HEIs to scale up their teaching and research functions, HEIs are facing new challenges of contributing to human and social development. The meaning and agenda of human and social development has also changed over decades, and new civil society actors have been closely associated with this phenomenon. This chapter looks at how the engagement of civil society organizations with the world of higher education has resulted in interesting trends in social policy formation and knowledge production. Illustrated through examples of effective engagement between higher education institutions and social and human development efforts of civil society organisations – PRIA in Asia and The Afrikan Multiversity in Africa – the paper draws lessons from these interventions, highlighting future potentials for HEIs. Exploring alternative sources and modes of learning and knowledge production, the paper provides a vision of the possibilities that engagement with civil society can open up in terms of contribution of HEIs to social and human development in the coming decades.Item Partnering with higher education institutions for SDG 17: The role of higher education institutions in multi-stakeholder partnerships(2018-04) Tandon, Rajesh; Chakrabarti, KaustuvDr Rajesh Tandon and Dr Kaustuv Chakrabarti focus this paper on exploring the role of HEIs in achieving the SDGs and their roles in multi stakeholder partnerships. Given the emphasis of intergovernmental agencies on partnerships including various stakeholders and its growing relevance in solving local development challenges, the second section of the paper provides a historical account of partnerships. The third section concentrates on the lessons of partnerships in the past two decades. Following which the paper presents the findings of a survey conducted by PRIA to understand the nuances of partnerships in present times. The final section analyses the implications for Higher Education Institutions in achieving the SDGs, pointing to the need for HEIs to rebalance power differentials and move beyond a teaching-only mode of engagement with other stakeholders.Item Disciplines, professions and the sustainable development goals (SDGs): Challenges in higher education in india(Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi), 2019) Tandon, Rajesh; Pandey, PoojaDr Rajesh Tandon and Pooja Pandey look at how Indian higher education institutions are engaging with the 2030 Agenda. India's scale of poverty, hunger, health and gender gaps makes this urgent, yet SDG integration remains largely absent from national policy and from bodies like AIU and FICCI, even as new UGC guidelines on social responsibility begin to open some space. Institutional examples from forest management education in Bhopal, climate resilience planning in Wayanad, and SDG teaching among engineering students at DTU show faculty-driven innovation that stays ad hoc rather than systemic. Rigid disciplinary and professional education frameworks emerge as the main obstacle to multi-disciplinary SDG work. The paper closes with recommendations for HEI leadership, regulatory councils, and civil society to push SDGs into the core teaching and research functions of Indian institutions.Item Fostering social responsibility in higher education in India(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2014) Tandon, RajeshThis paper explores the importance of integrating social responsibility into higher education in India, emphasising community engagement as a vital function alongside teaching and research. This paper draws on national and international practices, along with recommendations from the Planning Commission's Sub-committee on Strengthening Community Engagement in Higher Education. It looks at where Indian institutions currently stand on this front, what other countries are doing differently, and why engagement tends to stay on the margins instead of becoming central to how institutions function. The paper calls for engagement to be backed institutionally rather than left to individual faculty, for curricula to make room for community-based learning instead of treating it as an afterthought, and for students doing this work to receive academic credit, not just appreciation. The paper's larger point is for universities and colleges to move beyond producing knowledge in isolation and toward actively driving social change and sustainable development in India.Item Making the commitment: Contributions of higher education to SDGs(Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2017-09) Tandon, RajeshIn this paper, Dr Rajesh Tandon looks at the role Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can play in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He points out that political support, resources, and institutional capacity all matter, but the sharpest gap is one of knowledge. Hereby, he posits engaged teaching, research, and service as best placed to close it. HEIs, he argues, carry vast physical and intellectual resources, often underused, and can catalyze societal transformation once social responsibility is built into all three core missions across every discipline, not confined to a few departments. The paper works through practical strategies: revising curricula, building community-based research partnerships, and reframing service as mutual empowerment rather than charity. It closes with a call for systemic reform and collaboration among HEIs, government, civil society, and international networks to build an enabling ecosystem. Reimagined this way, HEIs move beyond traditional paradigms to become key drivers of the SDGs, fulfilling higher education's potential as a public good.Item Community engagement in higher education institutions: Status report 2015(UNESCO Chair, 2015-04) Tandon, Rajesh; Singh, WafaItem Community based participatory research & sustainable development goals(the Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s IdeaLab, 2017) Hall, Budd L; Tandon, RajeshIn this report, Dr. Budd Hall and Dr. Rajesh Tandon explore the role of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The authors contend that addressing the social, economic, and environmental challenges within the SDG framework demands knowledge production approaches that go beyond what conventional academic research offers. Higher education institutions, with their considerable intellectual, physical, and digital resources, are seen as well-placed to generate locally relevant and actionable knowledge through socially responsible research. CBPR is discussed as a collaborative and participatory approach that brings together universities, communities, civil society, and policy actors in equitable partnerships, with an emphasis on co-learning, capacity building, and social change. The report also considers how higher education institutions can integrate CBPR into their research work through locally grounded and community-driven methods. It closes with recommendations for universities, policymakers, funding agencies, and civil society organizations on building stronger institutional support for CBPR in the pursuit of the SDGs.Item Perspectives on community practices: Living and learning in community(Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani, 2015) Krašovec, Sabina Jelenc; Štefanc, Damijan; Hall, Budd L; Tandon, Rajesh; Tremblay, Crystal; Singh, WafaThis book presents the findings of the 2015 European Society for Research on the Education of Adults conference and brings together a rich collection of research that explores how communities learn, organise, resist and transform across varied contexts. It covers themes such as adult learning and wellbeing, intergenerational spaces of experience, feminist work in public museums, learning cities and regions, community resilience, applied theatre and transformative learning, and the co-construction of knowledge in community–university partnerships. Contributions such as Adult Learning and Wellbeing: Between Body Politics and the Body Politic, Community Building as Forum and Arena, and Challenges in the Co-Construction of Knowledge foreground tensions between policy, participation, power and everyday practice. The strength of this book lies in its plurality. It holds together critical, empirical and practice-based insights, making it an important resource for understanding community learning in complex and changing times.