University-Community Partnerships: A Local Planning Co-Production Study on Calabarzon, Philippines

Lovely S Mores,Woongkyoo Bae,Jeongwoo Lee

doi:10.3390/su11071850

Abstract

University-community partnerships provide opportunities for collaborations and meaningful engagement with community partners, in order to promote sustainable community development. To date, studies on university-community partnerships have largely neglected partnership potential and readiness prior to partnership formation. These factors enable expectations and targets to be negotiated and potential problems to be anticipated, prior to any formal collaboration. Hence, this study investigates the optimal preconditions—including environment, resources, and motivation—to facilitate successful university-community collaboration for local urban planning. Specifically, a sample of local government units (LGUs) and universities in the Calabarzon region of the Philippines were interviewed and observed to determine their needs and access to planning resources at universities, as well as factors that would ensure sustained partnerships. The results show that there is a need for university-community partnerships in local planning, since LGUs have limited technical capacity in preparing comprehensive land use plans, particularly with respect to data analysis, technical writing, project development, and hazard mapping. Conversely, LGUs have more financial resources than universities. Local universities were determined to be uniquely suited to meet the technical and human resource needs of LGUs. Importantly, though, previous partnership experience was found to dramatically influence both parties’ decisions regarding whether or not to pursue a partnership. Accordingly, there is a need to temper the desires and expectations of partner organizations, and lay down the foundations of sustainable university-community partnership prior to partnership formation. Toward this end, policies that bolster partnership institutionalization, funding, and systematic monitoring and evaluation systems can enhance the utility of such partnerships moving forward.

Highlights

Town and gown, campus-town, and community engagements are terms used to describe both university-community partnerships [1–3] and more general partnerships that are vital in implementing sustainable community development
The first covers respondents’ demographic information (Table 2); the second assesses partnership potential using variables derived from previous partnership experience, as quantified by a rating of utility, partnership strategies and partner location, as well as interest in the partnership (Table 3); the third deals with needs assessment and resource mapping as well as perceived benefits, including capability matching, to determine if a university-community partnership was necessary; and the last section delineates factors involved in partnership sustainability, based on answers to the open-ended questions (Table 4)
The results presented here clearly indicate that a majority of local government units (LGUs) still need assistance in preparing local plans, land use plans, as indicated by the limited number of LGUs with approved comprehensive land use plan (CLUP), especially those that are completed autonomously

Summary

Introduction

Campus-town, and community engagements are terms used to describe both university-community partnerships [1–3] and more general partnerships that are vital in implementing sustainable community development. The most common partnerships include service learning, local economic development, community-based research, and social work initiatives [2,4–7]. Other forms of collaboration include training, technical assistance, program development, and contracted studies [8,9]. In the Philippines, university-community partnerships tend to be of a service-learning type due to a government mandate that public universities provide community outreach and extension programs. Even though contractual agreements often specify the nature of a partnership, delineate roles and responsibilities, and arrange for cost sharing [11], the collaborations often lack depth due to limited contractual foresight, flexibility, and expansion into future collaborations to achieve sustainable and hierarchical outcomes [7]

Methods

Results

Conclusion