Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Paul Benneworth
Author-Name-First: Paul
Author-Name-Last: Benneworth
Title: The role of research to shape local and global engagement
Abstract: University research has the potential to help solve the grand challenges of the 21st
century through local and global engagement. Universities are quintessentially socially
engaged institutions that have been supported by external patrons because their
activities are socially useful, and that has expanded recently in the context of an emerging
global knowledge society. The rise of the Grand Challenges and the adoption by the UN
of their sustainable development goals as the overarching societal development
challenge for humanity provide a clear articulation of how university research must be
responsive to and responsible for creating the necessary knowledge base to solve these
challenges. There are a range of emerge models of engaging with citizens locally to allow
them to express the ways these problems impact upon their local communities to
universities as a first step in the research necessary to solve those problems. But there is
a risk in trying to upscale these activities into strategic university goals in crowding out.
It is university scholars engaged with communities that will deliver improved local
engagement, and universities need to find ways to empower these engaged scholars to
stimulate their societal contributions, not creating elaborate internal structures and
global networks.
Length: 19 pages
Creation-Date: 2017
File-URL: https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/6027769
File-Format: Application/pdf
Number: 201706
Keywords: Responsible Research & Innovation, Socially relevant research, University
Engagement, University Third Mission, University Societal Compact
Handle: RePEc:chs:wpachs:201706