Abstract
This article describes areas in application of good practices which emerged from international and interdisciplinary research on social suffering in urban spaces and on change agentry with inter-cultural sensitivity, which is on the basis of a new concept of co-operation for local development. Three examples of possible good practices are illustrated: 1) Pilot action-research project by UNAN of Managua on community health and quality of life in Managua’s Barrio Carlos Fonseca, an urban place of social suffering; 2) the relationship between University of Sancti Spiritus and the local Cuban community; 3) the action-research on the rights of citizen that the University of Milano-Bicocca, together with the Foundation Casa della Carità (local NGO), is conducting in some districts in Milan. It is important to emphasize how universities progressively raise number of tasks making them increasingly important as agents for local development. Therefore universities should be measured not only on the basis of quality of knowledge and human capital, but also on the level of embedded social capital within a certain region. Universities should increasingly become the nexus in which people can come together, ask questions, make demands and offer experiences. These social and professional practices pass through the university arena and return to their origins enriched by exchanges of new perspectives. Ideas coming from places of action and from dynamic collectivities outside, stimulate the inside through continuous co-mingling.
Highlights
Universities today are called to perform a growing number of complex roles for different target groups
Universities must offer more and more spaces in which people can come together, ask questions, make demands and offer experiences. These social and professional practices pass through the university arena and return to their origins enriched by exchanges of new perspectives
These ideas that come from places of action and dynamic collectivity outside, stimulate the inside through continuous co-mingling with critical practice and knowledge that foster changes with views on action research
Summary
Universities today are called to perform a growing number of complex roles for different target groups. Aside from the task of furnishing a traditional education (undergraduate, post-graduate, specialization, doctoral courses, etc.) and of conducting research, new requirements are added Among these we find: adult education, ad hoc courses for students from the business world, services and entrepreneurial activity, at times in partnership with the corporate world, action research, consulting, etc. Universities must offer more and more spaces in which people (even those from abroad, and quite far away) can come together, ask questions, make demands and offer experiences These social and professional practices pass through the university arena and return to their origins enriched by exchanges of new perspectives. These ideas that come from places of action and dynamic collectivity outside, stimulate the inside through continuous co-mingling with critical practice and knowledge that foster changes with views on action research. Universities become meeting grounds/a meeting ground for theories and practices that produce knowledge by placing different forms of understanding in dialog with each other and build connections while maintaining difference
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