Transcript Diapositiva 1

GLOBAL NETWORKING AND COMMUNITY-UNIVERSITY
ENGAGEMENT CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Session: TG11-P4
LATIN AMERICA
CHALLENGES AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE
UNIVERSITY – COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION
June 26th, 2013
José Blanes Jiménez
Centro Boliviano de Estudios Multidisciplinarios
Who we are
Bolivian Center for Multidisciplinary
Studies (Cebem) is a private and
autonomous nonprofit association,
dedicated to multidisciplinary research
and training at graduate level in social
sciences.
The focus of our day-to-day work
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25 years
Research, review and discussion of significant issues in
Bolivian and Latin American societies from a
multidisciplinary perspective.
Disseminate intellectual production through
publications, seminars, workshops, national and
international knowledge networks.
Maintain professional development programs by means
of online courses.
Providing support services to development projects.
Our policies
Working with communities as our main concern
Having a comparative view, mainly in Latin America
Creating discussion spaces for South-South and
North-South dialogue
Inclusion in IT usage, aimed at professionals.
Proposing alternatives to...
Overcrowded education
Persistent exclusion and elitism
Low quality
Mercantilization of public education
Tendency to professional discouragement
Disregard of local and traditional knowledge
Disregard of development requirements
Resistance to change
Latin America and the Caribbean
Graduates in the first level of University education
Main observations from Latin America
Higher Education Institutions (HEI) disregard social
responsibility, therefore increasing their segregation from
society and the detachment between researchers and
communities
Knowledge is becoming multidisciplinary, but disciplines
are still highly isolated
Development of academic networks is weak, there is little
collective learning
Countries, institutions, and their experiences are left in
the shadows, invisible to global learning
There are obstacles to building common spaces for
collaboration
The differences and gaps between countries
and Higher Education Institutions (HEI)
In the past ten years
• cooperation among HEIs improved
quality, which increased exponentially
however
• a great number of institutions have not
taken advantage of these lessons.
Two issues
1) Lack of visibility of successful experiences
that can serve to reduce gaps between
countries and institutions
2) Insufficient consideration for the graduated
professional who loses contact with
continuous education and knowledge
Some valuable experiences in the
university-community association
Some initiatives have emerged
from society itself
others have emerged from the students
themselves,
and very rarely from the universities
Large and most prestigious HEI have to a large
extent solved challenges of quality
Accelerated growth of HEI, massification, poor
quality, and absence of effective engagement with
the needs of society
STRATEGIC POSITION
As a small academic institution, we support local initiatives
looking to maximize their impact both in our region and
globally.
Our focus is on:
Information management
Operation of knowledge and community networks
Presenting HEI with alternatives for professionalization
Research about means of knowledge dialog between HEI and
development professionals
MUCH OF EFFORT TO IMPROVE HEI HAS COME FROM
THE SMALLEST INSTITUTIONS
• Not metropolitan but instead regional or
provincial
• With great engagement and proximity to the real
world
There is need to address knowledge that exists in
small and provincial institutions as they represent
important regional potential
First Challenge
The two worlds of HEI
• Bringing together both worlds based on
knowledge of the real world
• Seeking visibility for smaller institutions and
their successful experiences
Second Challenge
The world of professionals
They are in the community, implementing policies,
development projects, and interacting with the
international cooperation
• Professionals, technicians, practitioners, trainers
and the civil service need continuous
communication with sources of knowledge
• They need a system of continuous education and
updating in their discipline with an
interdisciplinary perspective
Third challenge
Creating cooperation spaces for
collective knowledge
Thematic areas
Networks on concrete topics and activities
Practice communities
Collaborative workgroups
Including
• Research
• Training programs
• Collaborative topic development
• Knowledge communities
CEBEM is supporting a democratic
knowledge mobilization, or a CBR
movement, where civil society is a
full partner in the creation of
knowledge for social change.
It is feasible and necessary
INTERNATIONAL OR GLOBAL NETWORKS TO
STRENGTHEN AND/OR ADVANCE OUR WORK AND
THE WORK OF THOSE WITH WHOM WE WORK
A “steel triangle”?
DEMAND
COSTS
QUALITY
Is that rigidity untouchable?
Until recently, this equilateral triangle was immutable
It was impossible to move one of the corners in one direction
without negatively affecting the others
Now, because of the arrival of open educational
resources
it is possible to increase access and quality without
increasing costs
He added
With mediation from networks and interaction between
institutions sure of their scope, the triangle is not necessarily
that rigid.
But research based on concrete experiences is needed.
There are still initiatives from some of the biggest universities
that can massify higher education in prejudice to quality.
STRATEGIES
1) Visibilize successful experiences capable of
reducing the gaps between countries and
institutions.
2) Acknowledging professionals as the main target
for higher education.
3) Creating cooperation spaces to ease gatherings
and the setup of practice communities.
4) Increase attention on forgotten universities and
education centers: knowledge is produced in
them.
5) Start off problems and take action around the
dialogue between experts and professionals.
LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE
CEBEM has learned from many experiences,
being outstanding among them:
REDESMA (Latin America & Africa)
RIPPET
Cooperación, Conocimiento y Desarrollo
GACER Cátedra UNESCO
1 REDESMA (Latin America & Africa)
REDESMA Latin America is a knowledge management tool
responsible of creating a huge community of people concerned
with South-South and North-South cooperation. It has over
150.000 members.
REDESMA Africa has been working as a mean for transferring
experiences between Bolivia and Mozambique, having gathered
over 10.000 members in less than a year, both in Latin America
and Africa.
2 Post-Degree Network in Politics and
Territorial Studies: RIPPET
Created 20 years ago as a derivative from Iberic American
Network of Researchers in Globalization and Territory (RII),
RIPPET is a cooperation and exchange space for postdegree programs in Latin America
Has organized 11 international encounters with
participation of over 80 programs and institutions from
Latin America
It works towards an objective
“promoting exchange, coordination and
cooperation between different post-graduation
programs mantained by HEI in South America,
Mexico and Europe”
Its operational objectives are
1. Professors collaborating between post-graduation
programs
2. Peer-reviewed research
3. Strengthen diffusion of academic publications from
researchers inside the network
4. Development of contents integration processes between
post-graduation programs
5. Increase the usage of technologic tools
6. Design continuous broadcasting mechanisms
7. Enhance institutional frameworks for encounters
between university communities and professional
communities
COOPERATION SPACES
CEBEM acts as Executive Secretary in RIPPET,
promoting activities and tools for
Cooperation among local universities through joint,
travelling and collaborative courses
Creating information and communication spaces
Collaborative development of online courses
VISIBILIZATION OF PROGRAMS
Add value
• Note the quality of courses in the region
• Reward collaboration
• Gather capacities in the region
• Value relationships between cultures
• Cooperation with other networks
• Renew the concept of quality beyond the
classroom
3 Cooperation, Knowledge, Development
Dialogue North-South
Promotes access to knowledge and collective learning
North-South and South-South. Started in 2007, gathers a
growing number of associated institutions in Latin
America and Canada
It focuses on knowledge associations and professional
update
Among its tools are:
a collaborative model including directories and
databases, an online educational platform for short
professional update courses, and widespread electronic
newsletters
4 PROFESSIONAL UPDATE
Short courses program
Knowledge production
• doesn’t occur only in university classrooms
• must pay attention to professionals
• builds joint spaces where experience is the
foundation of knowledge and learning while
dialoguing with experts
• higher education should not be aimed only at the
students
RESOURCES USED
1. Institutions present
2. Programs
3. Communication mechanisms
4. Networks-Communities
1. NEWSLETTERS
2. SCIENTIFIC ONLINE MAGAZINE
3. TOPICAL DOSSIERS
4. SHORT COURSES
THEMATIC AREAS
- INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS
- INTERCULTURALITY AND WORK MARKET
- LOCAL, REGIONAL AND TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT
- GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT
- PROJECTS PLANNING AND EVALUATION
- HUMAN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
- MIGRATION AND REMITTANCES
- CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT
- LOCAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT
- CLIMATE CHANGE
- ECONOMICS AND ENVIRONMENT
- HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT
- ENERGY AND DEVELOPMENT
PROFESSIONAL UPDATE PROGRAMS
WE ARE LEARNING FROM
• Over 3200 professionals trained in Latin
America, the Caribbean, Canada, Europe
• Over 50 professors from Europe, Latin
America and the Caribbean
• Courses prepared in 64 different courses
prepared
• 142 classes formed in six-week periods
• A database with over 27600 interested
professionals
GACER Cátedra UNESCO
(UNESCO Chair)
CEBEM is a South contributor to North
experiences, mainly through GACER.
Contributes incorporating trend topics
from both Spanish-speaking and
Portuguese-speaking South into the
space developed by North networks
LEARNING PROCESS
We learn permanently and we require
adding new partners to develop new
ideas and tools
We need to develop knowledge dialog
mechanisms
It is necessary to generate operative
knowledge starting from problem
solving principles
TOOLS CROSS CUTTING ON LEARNING
Appropriate tools for learning
in a global context
Pedagogy and instruments for a new
knowledge dialog using the most
recent technologies
Frameworks for collaboration among
professionals and HEIs
Conclusion
Use of new technologies to advance cooperation
between diverse HEI from diverse regions.
Greater investment for appropriation of these
methodologies and their adaptation to knowledge
management so that they can be more inclusive
and committed to the real world.
Small institutions can perform important role due
to their capacity to adapt themselves to conditions
of rapid change and operate with low costs.
Visibility of collaboration among large HEIs and
smaller institutions can open paths in the coming
together of University and the Community.
Identification of diverse models of collaboration and
cooperation between institutions constructing
common spaces, where the specific and concrete
feeds the meaning of global processes.
Programs of short courses for professional updating:
- put professionals among privileged stakeholders,
- they could advance the university-community
relationship, as graduated professionals are key
component and ideal connection for the flows of
knowledge.
Higher education must consider not only the student in
university classrooms but also dedicate attention to
professionals, constructing spaces with them in which
experience is a part of higher education.
Thank you