Global Alliance on Community-Engaged Research
www.gacer.org
The Global Alliance on Community-Engaged Research was created by representatives of universities, networks and civil society organizations at the May 2008 Community University Expo Conference in Victoria, BC, Canada, hosted by the University of Victoria. The International Development Research Corporation of Canada funded a specific Global Networking meeting on May 5th 2008 at which representatives of 14 countries throughout the world developed a Declaration of The Global Alliance (see below), which was then endorsed by many of the 600 delegates at the conference. The meeting was an opportunity to examine how the strengths of various existing networks could be best advanced for the common global purpose of using knowledge and community-university partnership strategies for democratic social and environmental change and justice, particularly among the most vulnerable people and places of the world. An added purpose was to see how the voice of majority world researchers and activists can be prominent in the emerging global networks. All of this is with the aim of strengthening the capacity of grass roots organizations to make a difference in the pressing and complex issues of poverty, violence, climate change, injustice, and health throughout the world.
Declaration
The Declaration is now a focus for global organizing to support and strengthen Community-Engaged Research as a fundamental means of mobilizing and creating knowledge to contribute to human betterment, by:
- sharing effective practices in strengthening engagement of communities
- supporting communities and groups to create healthier societies and environment
- developing new generations of community engaged scholars and community based researchers
- measuring collectively the impact of our work in our community and world
- advocating for enhanced policy and resource support
View a copy of the Declaration:
Objective
The main objective of the Alliance is to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and information across continents and countries to enable interaction and collaboration to further the application and impact of community-based research for a sustainable just future for the people of the world. Organizations involved in community-based research from around the world are invited to participate in an open and democratic Alliance that adds value to existing networking and collaborative endeavours.
GACER Steering Committee
Angie Hart - England
Budd Hall - Canada
Chan Lean Heng - South East Asia
Crostina Escrogas - Spain
Henk Mulder - Netherlands
Jean-Marc Fontan - Quebec
Joanna Ochocka - Canada
Jose Blanes - Bolivia
Juliet Millican - United Kingdom
Lamine Kane - Senegal
Marek Wosinski - United States
Norbert Steinhaus - Germany
Peter Taylor - Canada
Rajesh Tandon - India (Chair)
Sarena Seifer - United States / Canada
Wendy Brawer - United States
Yazmin Cruz - Spain
Nirmala Lall - Canada
Executive members of the Global Alliance Steering Committee contacts:
Rajesh Tandon, Chair of GACER and President of Participatory Research Institute Asia (PRIA), India rajeshtandon@pria.org
Chan Lean Heng, Independent Trainer and Organizer working with Women's groups and social movements throughout Asia. Working out of Bangkok, leanlotus@hotmail.com
Norbert Steinhaus, Associate Chair of GACER, International contact for Living Knowledge Network, Bonn, Germany, norbert.steinhaus@wilabonn.de
Peter Taylor, International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada ptaylor@idrc.ca
Budd Hall, Secretary of GACER, University of Victoria, Canada bhall@uvic.ca
Nirmala Lall, Research Officer, University of Victoria nirmala@uvic.ca
Emily Little, Webmaster, University of Victoria ocbr@uvic.ca
Resources
GACER 2011 Brochure
http://web.uvic.ca/~ccharlie/GACER%20Brochure%20Feb%202011.pdf
GACER News 2011
http://web.uvic.ca/~ccharlie/GACER%20News.pdf
Links
Centro Boliviano de Estudios Multidisciplinarios:
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health:
Global University Network for Innovation:
Living Knowledge - The International Science Shop Network:
Pascal International Observatory:
http://pascalobservatory.org/pascalnow
Practice in Participation
http://www.practiceinparticipation.org/
Society for Participatory Research in Asia:
Tufts University - The Talloires Network:
http://www.tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/
UNESCO Chair in Community-Based Research & Social Responsibility in Higher Education
World Civic Forum
http://www.khu.ac.kr/eng/outreach/civic_forum.jsp
Goals and Strategies
The goal of the Global Alliance is to create a space for collaborative action on enhancing community-engaged research as a vehicle for knowledge-based decision-making on those issues and opportunities that are strategic to the community and human development needs of people in the face of the major and inter-related global social, economic, and environmental challenges of the day. It is suggested that the following key strategies will need to be part of the Action Plan to achieve that goal:
- Promoting the Global Declaration to connect and engage as many interested players in support of it as possible.
- Making use of already existing organizational and communications structures to build on and strengthen those existing efforts.
- Adding value to those efforts by creating opportunity for knowledge exchange and sharing of best practices/strategies between geographic and sectoral networks/collaboratives that are already involved.
- Creating technology and media-assisted communications tools and in-person meeting opportunities for engagement of an ever increasing network of university, community, civil society, governmental, philanthropic and other interests in learning about and enhancing community-engaged research.
- Developing program initiatives, activities and events that build capacity for community-engaged research across the globe amongst research and community practitioners, and particularly amongst emerging practitioners.
- Mapping community-engagement in research and its outcomes across sectors and continents to further knowledge of its extent, scope, impact and significance.
- Increasing the profile of community-engaged research as a key component of evidence and knowledge-based decision making to address the social, economic and environmental challenges facing the world today.
- Influencing the policy environment amongst governments, international and national institutions and funders to strengthen support for community-engagement in research and policy development.
- 2013-06-12- CUExpo2013 - Save a Day
- 2013-06-12- CBRC General Meeting at CUEXPO 2103