Championing participatory research partnerships through community-university engagement for disseminating knowledge
By its very constitution, the UNESCO Chair has been focused on community-based research (CBR) and social responsibility in higher education. Since its establishment in 2012, the UNESCO Chair CBRSR has been engaged in knowledge production, mobilisation and dissemination through participatory research approaches that accept multiple epistemologies, while being open to reciprocal and mutual engagement in learning and education.
The UNESCO Chair is co-lead by the University of Victoria in Canada and PRIA in India. Over the years, the Chair has strengthened regional and global networks focused on collaborative inquiry. In the process, it has been engaged with grassroots practitioners, community organisers, and higher education institutions who conduct participatory research across multiple contexts.
In its first term (2012-2016) the Chair conducted two global research studies to assess the state of community-university engagement and research partnerships. The first study focused on mainstreaming and institutionalising Community-University Research Partnerships, while the second focused on contexts, pedagogies and arrangements for learning approaches by the next generation of researchers.
During its second (2016-2020) and third (2020-2024) terms, the Chair undertook and championed numerous participatory research projects and publications that underline its mission of transforming higher education through collaborative inquiry, inter-disciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches.
Here we showcase some of the Chair’s participatory research publications:
