Research and University Social Responsibility: During and Beyond COVID-19

Abstract

In the popular imagination in many countries, Universities became associated with the notion of the “Ivory Tower”, i.e., a place where people can remain happily engrossed in their own intellectual, artistic or spiritual pursuits, disconnected from the rest of the world. The connection that we find in Tagore’s (1934) writings about the University’s social responsibility towards the local and the global community in its pursuit of knowledge and various forms of art and beauty to foster mutual understanding and progress of humanity, has been somehow missing in the popular imagination. Only recently, faced with the major sustainability challenge of our collective home, the planet Earth, global organisations, such as the UNESCO, have doubled up their efforts in advocating for realigning the mission and vision of the University to become more socially engaged in research, and other creative as well as artistic pursuits. The European Union has also come up with a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) 2020 framework to promote “science with and for society”. This chapter will discuss the key challenge for most Universities to make the connection with the community. It will discuss the role that practice-based teaching and community-based participatory research can play to make this connection with the community, as promoted by the UNESCO-Chair in community-based participatory research and social responsibility in higher education. This will help to identify research problems relevant to meet the community needs and to work with the communities to find relevant local solutions to solve global problems prioritised by the Sustainable Development Goals.