Global Alliance on Community Engaged Research

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.

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:

• english version
• spanish version
• french version

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.

See the Alliance's Action Plan (Here)

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.

Initiatives

The Global Alliance through its Executive members presented a session on policies needed to strengthen higher education's role in community engaged research at the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education (Paris, July 2009). This policy paper "Higher Education, Community Engagement and The World We Want" is available on our Resources Page.  Canadian partners in the Global Alliance have also secured funding from the International Opportunities Fund of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, and the International Development Research Center, to support research and development of the Alliance and its work. These Initiatives will be the core work of the Alliance in the next year. Go to our contact or members pages to be kept informed of developments and to provide your input!

Contacts

Executive members of the Global Alliance Steering Committee can be contacted as follows:

Rajesh Tandon, Participatory Research Institute Asia, India rajeshtandon@pria.org

Chan Lean Heng, Science University of Malaysia, Penang-Malaysia, leanlotus@hotmail.com

Norbert Steinhaus, Living Knowledge Network, Germanynorbert.steinhaus@wilabonn.de

Peter Taylor, University of Sussex, England p.taylor@ids.ac.uk

Budd Hall, University of Victoria, Canada bhall@uvic.ca 

Staff support for the Alliance is currently located at UVic in Canada, contact:

Charlotte Charlie ocbr@uvic.ca   
c/o the Office of Community Based Research, University of Victoria, 
Tel. 250-472-4171, Fax 250-472-4358. PO Box 3030 STN CSC, 
Victoria BC V8T 2H2 Canada

Structure

1. Three of the participating organizations/networks in the development of the Declaration have agreed to invest in helping the Alliance get started in its first two years: the Office of Community-Based Research at the University of Victoria (on behalf of Community Based Research Canada; Participatory Research in Asia (India), and; the Living Knowledge Network (Germany).
2. It is proposed that these three organizations and individuals from them take on the roles of Chair, Vice Chair and Secretary for the Alliance, convening meetings of a larger Steering Committee, allocating/finding resources for coordinating an Action Plan for the Alliance, and creating communication and meeting opportunities for its members. 
3. It is proposed that the Steering Committee be made up of around 15 representatives of key networks and organizations involved in community-based research partnerships from each continent, with a balance of university and civil society representation, and a majority from majority-world (i.e. south) locations. The Steering Committee will guide the development of the Action Plan and plan the agendas and activities of the Alliance at the Global level. Members of the Steering Committee will also act as convenors of members of the Alliance in their continents and in their sectoral areas of interest (see below). Steering Committee Members invited so far include: Budd Hall and Rupert Downing (Canada), Norbert Steinhaus (Germany), Caspar de Bok (Holland), Lean Chang Heng (Malaysia), Lamine Kane (Senegal), Jose Blanes (Bolivia), Marek Wosinski (USA), Peter Taylor (UK), Sarena Seifer (USA), Jean-Marc Fontan (Canada), Rajesh Tandon (India), Wendy Brawer (USA), Cristina Escrigas (Spain), Jorge Osorio (Chile). 
4. In addition to the Steering Committee it is proposed that members be recruited to work together in their respective continental settings on developing an agenda that fits with regional realities and priorities and contributes to Global Alliance initiatives to make them useful to regional perspectives. In this way Steering Committee members will essentially convene a reference group of Alliance members/participants in their geographic regions to strengthen the reach and relevance of the Alliance to those regions interests and priorities. Other members may also wish to use the Alliance to convene and share discussions in particular sectors of community-engaged research (e.g. Science and Democracy; Environmental Sustainability; Governance and Civil Society Engagement; Social Development; Community Development; Solidarity Economy; Health Promotion; Literacy and Education: Aboriginal And First Nations Self Determination; etc. ) The Alliance will create a space for existing Networks and community university partnerships to work on issues relevant to a global community-engagement agenda, and support collaboration across those existing networks to achieve reciprocal benefits.

Goals and Strategies

The goal of the 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.

New MA prepares community leaders worldwide

The Ring - February 2010
By Christine McLaren

The School of Public Administration is launching a unique online program in community development. Designed for working professionals, the Master of Arts in Community Development (MACD) aims to prepare leaders for the challenges of today’s global issues in communities around the world.

“Communities are facing new challenges and opportunities at various levels”, says MACD co-chair Lynne Siemens. “This program will build leadership capacity for organizations and prepare community leaders around the world”.

Through experiential learning, fieldwork and theory, the focus will be on applying sustainable development principles and practices in the governance, leadership and management structures of co-operatives, non-profits and the social economy.

The international component of the program will be delivered in collaboration with the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA). This unique partnership of academics and practitioners is the first of its kind in the world. The program will be delivered primarily online.

“This degree will allow students to stay in their communities and still have access to experienced professors with high-level theoretical background and deep practical experiences with broad and diverse perspectives about development in communities around the world,” says Budd Hall co-chair of both the MACD program and international component. Hall is a professor in the school and director of UVic’s Office of Community Based Research.

PRIA is a civil society organization with 30 years of experience in participatory and grassroots development in India. Headed up by Rajesh Tandon, a 2008 UVic honorary degree recipient, the society delivers a number of programs transferring knowledge and tools in the field of civic engagement.

“Through this program we want to prepare a globally active network of community leaders who are professionally prepared to address global and local issues,” says Tandon, co-chair of the international component of the program. “This requires leadership vision and a capacity to engage in making change.”

Practitioners, researchers and academics have forged a unique partnership to create this program founded on the premise that transformative leadership requires collaboration. The program will commence in June 2010.

More info: http://publicadmin.uvic.ca/macd or http://publicadmin.uvic.ca/macdi

“4th International Living Knowledge Network Conference a Success”

Report on the IVth (2009) International Conference of the Living Knowledge Network, Belfast, Northern Ireland 

Budd Hall, Director, Office of Community Based Research, University of Victoria, BC, Canada

Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) played host to about 200 participants from 17 countries who participated in the IVth International Conference of the Living Knowledge Network (LKN) between August 25 and 29, 2009.

The conference took place in the lovely mid 19^th century buildings of QUB in the welcoming city of Belfast.  The Science Shop at the University of Belfast has been in operation for over 20 years.  Eileen Martin and Emma McKenna were the key organizers of the event for QUB.  Eileen is a founding member of the Living Knowledge Network. Henk Mulder and Norbert Steinhaus were the key Living Knowledge Network leaders.  Henk Mulder from the Chemistry Science Shop at the University of Groningen, Netherlands is the lead on the new EU Living Knowledge proposal.

Some overall observations

The Science Shop movement is not only sustaining its strengths, but is expanding in the numbers of science shops that are being established.  The European Unions’ Science and Society research funding unit is on the verge of making a large $5 million four year grant to the Living Knowledge Network to consolidate and deepen the work of the science shops in Europe.  But the science shop idea is taking roots elsewhere as well.  There are some 14 new science shops established in Shanghai for example, a new one in Osaka Japan and one in the University of Zululand in South Africa.

There are an increasing number of more senior university, government and funding council leaders showing an interest in the broader idea of community university research partnerships as evidenced by participation by the senior government official for university and research funding with the Government of Ireland, the Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Brighton, the Pro Vice-Chancellor for QUB itself, the Director of the English Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement and key funding agencies from Europe, Ireland and the UK.

The international space for dialogue and policy development made possible through the launching of the Global Alliance for Community Engaged Research (GACER) seems to have found an initial welcome.  The LKN (which is a founding member of GACER) provided many opportunities for visibility and discussion at the global level.  The early success by GACER in getting some buy-in from the World Conference on Higher Education organized by UNESCO in July of 2009 provided solid evidence of the value of having a global space made up of the already existing other networks in various parts of the world.

GACER News flash – Join the growing number of network collaborations on this GACER initiative

Through the support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council’s International Opportunity Fund and the International Development Research Center; GACER is undertaking a study on the role of community-university research relationships.  Strengthening Knowledge Strategies for Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development is a global study of community-university partnerships.  The overall objective of the study is to engage international collaboration in the strengthening of community-university research partnerships in sustainable human, social and economic development through evidence-based analysis and knowledge mobilization. This research is Important because higher education Institutions and communities engage in community-university research partnerships across the world. This project will gather evidence and analyse policy to demonstrate that such partnerships have significant potential to contribute to the betterment of society through poverty reduction, sustainability, economic and policy development.
If you are involved or have been involved in a community-university research partnership and would like to connect with this study or with GACER please contact: bhall@uvic.ca using the email subject line: GACER.