universities' engagement with excluded communities
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Universities' Engagement with Excluded Communities. Making an Impact: Universities and the Regional Economy Wednesday 4th November 2009 Paul Benneworth, Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, the Netherlands. Acknowledgements. Economic and Social Research Council - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Universities' Engagement with Excluded Communities
Making an Impact: Universities and the Regional Economy Wednesday 4th November 2009
Paul Benneworth, Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, the Netherlands
Acknowledgements
Economic and Social Research Council
Ursula, Peter & Laura (Programme)
Funders’ Group: hefce, SFC, DELNI, hefcw
Co-researchers (David, Lynne, Catherine)
CHEPS
Outline of presentation
The rise of the third mission
A challenging target group – socially excluded communities
Characteristics of university-community engagement
How does engagement fit as an HEI mission?
What can be done to support engagement?
The rise of the third mission
1980s depression – harnessing past investments in university knowledge
Late 1980s – idea of ‘entrepreneurial university’
1990s – formal governmental role – policies for regional impact
Now legally enshrined as formal taskNetherlands
Sweden …
Evidence base
First wave: multiplier effects (universities as businesses)
Second wave: Universities as benevolent but detached (regional profiles)
Third wave: Universities as constructive partnership players
Broad set of potential/ latent benefits
Restrictive policy approaches
Typical ‘third stream’ policy cycleEarly eye-catching experiments (HERDF)
Benign environment (HEROBAC)
Tightening/ squeezing (HEIF4)
Not unique to England – difficult to define third mission without targeting (cash) outputs
Wicked issues of university engagement
The expansion of Higher Education CAN create public benefits BUT is being channelled to targeting private beneficiaries.
Universities CAN have great societal impacts BUT are being funded to create spinouts
Universities CAN encourage all to engage BUT it is easier to channel it through an office
Why look at excluded communities
Focus: socially excluded communitiesHigh needs, low capacity to engage
Disengaged from knowledge economy
Extreme case – convincing results
Evidence of improved third mission
‘Moral’ imperative for universities to demonstrate ‘not just businesses’
Our project…
2 year research project £135k Initiative Contribution, £30k Newcastle University, £10k licensing deal
Concern universities prioritising commercial engagement
Focus: engagement with socially excluded communities
Three regions*, 33 Universities (NE, NW, Scotland) 2 phases
1 – mapping exercise2 – detailed case studies of ‘co-learning’
Much activity…
Engagement
Opening facilities
Running projects
Volunteering
Cultural programmes
Mandating student involvement
Individual knowledge exchange
Consultancy and evaluation
Regeneration on the campus
Community representation
consultations
Developing engagement strategies
Providing non-accredited courses
Access to facilities
Pro bono spill-overs
Tailoring activities
Involving community in decisions
Huge amount of engagement
Kitson argues 40% of academics ‘engage’
Engaged in processes of society regeneration and inclusion
Physical development, curriculum, service, governance
Different levels of engagement: corporate, faculty, academic, students
All kinds of universities engaging…
How applicable to prosperous regions?
Often peripheral within university
Symptoms: one-off projects; in business office;
used for PR; dominated by WP/ LLL;
structural suspicion; paper-chasing not behaviour changing
Hard to sustain long-term cultural change
Heavily dependent on a few enthusiastic leaders
Difficult to know/ measure/ capture
Phase 2: understanding engagement processes
1. Community mobilisationBuilding a learning community
2. Embedding within university Liverpool Hope: reinforcing pillars
3. Spinning-out activity into societyUpscaling ‘project’ into a social institution/ actor
Process (1): community mobilisation
Award winning community art project
Inner city communities, mid-sized city with problems
Creating a self-regulating community based around art
Active in ‘art’ world beyond locality
Process (2): embedding in university
Liverpool Hope: Mutually reinforcing pillars within HEIPhysical development: Cornerstone phase IV
Supporting community facility use: WAC, Collective Encounters
Curriculum: Community music, drama, dance
Research: Institute for Community Arts
Volunteering: Global Hope, SLA
Have to be woven together within one institution
University senior
managers
Urban Hope
Community groups
Funding agencies
Anchor Tenants
Academics
StudentsWECC
RLPO
Estates
Academics
Students
Community groups
SOS Children’s Villages
Academics
Students
MusicSpace
RLPO
Music activity
Faith Primary
DCFS
Finance
LWAC
EOC
‘Urban Hope’
‘In Harmony’
‘Service and Leadership Award’
Global Hope
Cornerstone
Student Services
Key learning communities
Intercommunity linkages
Volunteering projects
Hope’s sponsorship of
RLPO
LIPA students
Process (3): ‘spinning it out’.
From one-off project to recurrent actor£10m under management in 20 projects
Embedding social improvements in society(Semi-)detached relationships with university
Ensuring long-term survival and sustainabilityHave to survive outside the institution
Making the break – post ‘academic’ lifeTUPE, succession, transition…
Community Financial Solutions (Salford)
ReflectionsGood ideas emerge in universities…
…but not the place to grow them
Importance of upscaling & diffusionWhere is the policy support for that?
25 years of business engagement tells us…Technology transfer knowledge exchangeProcess in the round: venture fundingUniversities and non-exec directorsRewarding the ‘inventors’…