Abstract
Universities’ community engagement is confronted with growing pressure from increased competition and marketisation of knowledge, along with widespread adoption of New Public Management measures. This context is notably challenging for forms of engagement that are based on such principles and practices as cooperation, knowledge democracy and public value. Within this framework, this article identifies competencies and strategies that may ensure durability of community-university partnerships.
 The article presents the results of two different, yet coherently connected, research endeavours on Science Shops in Europe. Science Shops are a unique way to organise relationships between science and society mainly by responding to research questions arising from citizens and/or Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), usually by means of a participatory methodology and active involvement of students.
 Empirical evidence for this article was gathered by means of a wide range of different techniques, such as structured questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, direct observation and document analysis. In the first research effort, a questionnaire was delivered to European Science Shops in order to produce mainly descriptive statistics prior to progressing to case studies and focus groups which would generate more in-depth knowledge and understanding. The second study program was connected to formative and summative evaluation of a European Commission funded project aimed at embedding Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in Higher Education curricula through Science Shops (namely EnRRICH – Enhancing Responsible Research and Innovation through Curricula in Higher education). Participatory evaluation was carried out mainly on pilot projects run by project partners.
 Results are discussed in the light of relevant literature regarding possible strategic assets that may enable Science Shops and Community Engagement units to overcome observed fragility and ensure durability. This can be pursued through systematic mobilisation of specific knowledge, competencies and abilities. Combinatory capacity and boundary spanning are pinpointed as specific components of Science Shops’ action, which – we maintain – are also key strategic assets to consolidate their role and ensure durability. The distinction between the ‘instrumental/operational’ and ‘strategic’ function of boundary spanning is introduced in order to analytically develop this argument.
Highlights
The extent and pace of change faced by societies across the world in the last two decades of the 21st century has been unprecedented, and this has deeply impacted the way knowledge is produced and shared
Higher Education Systems (HESs) and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have faced profound transformation, and the life of people working in these institutions today is extremely different from that of their colleagues 30 or 40 years ago
The scenario synthetically sketched above is a challenging one for engaged research and community-university cooperation, notably for intentional initiatives that aim to achieve structural continuity. It sets the contextual framework for a broad research question as to whether and how community-engaged research and teaching can persist and eventually evolve within such a challenging setting. To address this wide-ranging issue, our research focuses on the durability and vulnerability of the ‘Science Shops’, which originated in the Netherlands in the early 1970s
Summary
The extent and pace of change faced by societies across the world in the last two decades of the 21st century has been unprecedented, and this has deeply impacted the way knowledge is produced and shared. The neoliberal orientation of public policy and the ensuing changes in the private sector favoured by progressive market deregulation, along with transformation of world trade and new forms and distribution of labour, are some of the most relevant components of structural change that have led to progressive commodification and marketisation of knowledge throughout the latter part of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st In parallel, and both as a consequence and a driving factor, public institutions across the world – HEIs among them – have been called upon to adopt new organisational and governance arrangements in line with the directives of New Public Management (Clark 2002; Hood 1995). The first set of data provides descriptive statistics to illustrate some of the key features of Science Shops’ organisational structure and modus operandi It sets the argument for further analysis from the second research stream, since the questionnaire survey results provide evidence that a crucial component of both the work process and the outcomes of Science Shops is relationships. Our evidence brings to light a further functional dimension of boundary spanning which we define ‘strategic’ to delineate a specific ambit of actions which can be observed at different intra- and inter-institutional levels to ensure sustainability and durability over time
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