Re-imagining the University:

What do we think were doing

when were doing engaged
research?

Keri Facer, University of Bristol & AHRC Connected

Communities Leadership Fellow
@kerileef @ahrcconnect

Overview
Context for Engaged Research - Beyond the
university (trends and challenges)
Period of radical experimentalism
Experiments in re-imagining universities
Experiments in re-imagining research
Connected Communities & others.

Contemporary debates, muddy oppositions

and key positions
Conceptual tools for forming new alliances?
Thinking in public

BEYOND THE UNIVERSITY:

TRENDS AND CHALLENGES

Context 1 new economic conditions

Consequences of the 2007/2008 crash
More than just a blip living with low/no growth
Demands for new social and economic structures (Castells)
Radically increasing economic inequalities, hollowing out of the
middle classes and positional competition
Increasing demands (reduced affluence) and constrained
resources (shift of wealth to wealthy) for public services and
voluntary sectors

For Higher Education

Demands for greater accountability for public funding
Intensifying competition for fewer places for diminishing returns
for students what does equpping students for the economy
look like in this context?
Demands to play a role in re-imagining social and economic life

Context 2 environmental disruption

2 degree temperature rise..
Increasing amounts spent on adaptation of critical
infrastructure
Increasing migration and movement of people around
globe
Growth in campaigning organisations and experiments in
new ways of living

For Higher Education?

Increasing pressure on public funds and demands for
mitigation and amelioration technologies and strategies
from universities
Potential decline in international student markets
alongside significant growth in local student diversity
Universities for new economies?

Context 3 technological change

The Internet exists
New knowledge and information landscapes making visible
diverse forms of knowledge, allowing people to network and
share and exchange ideas globally.
+++ bioscience, new engineering

For Higher Education?

Growth in gift economy for learning eg 5min
Emergence of new forms of accreditation e.g. Mozilla Badges
Learning to live with not being monopoly providers of
information, teaching or accredition
Disruptions to the time and place of education

Context 4 aging
Declining global fertility and increasing longevity
Europe/North America become more aware of our
minority position in the world diversification of research
priorities, cultures and practices (from 1114 to 1145 by
2060)
Over 50% of western Europe aged over 50 by 2035, over
25% aged over 65

For universities?
Lifelong learning role?
Education as an NHS model? Initial degrees as
vaccinations, with more sustained ongoing relationship
with older adults over time, and more openness to older
adults participating for the first time?

Critical challenge for universities

Our societies and our communities are under
significant pressure
How will universities contribute to the survival
and flourishing of our societies through the
21st century canyon ?
How will they help us to imagine and build
better futures?

WHAT SHOULD A UNIVERSITY BE IN

THIS CONTEXT?

There has been a bit of change in

universities before
12th/13th Century - medieval universities
Increasingly complex societies require new forms of
professional knowledge, new relationships with church.

14th/15th century humanism

new ideas, new texts, discontent with annotating old
classics disputations and creations of new institutions

19th century rise of civic and land grant universities

meeting changing economic conditions and new social
needs

Late 19th/ early 20th century

Workers Education, Co-operatives, Houses of the People,

Experiments with the idea of

universities today focus on teaching
Massively open online courses turning traditional
institutions inside-out
Certification Universities, online only (e.g. Phoenix cf
Turkey/Middle East)
Commercial Providers e.g. Pearson, entering the
scene
Massive growth of university provision in Asia
University of the Arts (Grayling etc) traditional form,
new financing model
Collectivist approaches: Peer to Peer Universities selforganised, not accredited; Co-operative Universities
Free Universities/ Guilds/ Collectives

WHAT SHOULD
RESEARCH LOOK LIKE
IN THESE CHANGING
CONTEXTS?

A landscape of radical experimentalism

Open Innovation close collaboration between
industry and researchers e.g. MOD/Maths &
Social Policy; HP/Computing;
Patient Syndication in Medicine sharing IP,
commissioning research, e.g. Alzheimers
Social Innovation & Co-production
Action Research, Participatory Action Research
Education, Development
Co-design arts, design, computing
Oral histories and community archeologies
action heritage

Connected Communities:
Researching community with, by and for communities
Cross Research Council Programme, led by the AHRC
To date (rough/latest figures):
300+ projects including
10 large grants (more coming within next 18 months )
approx 1.2- 2m; 5 WW1 Hubs connecting public and
academic histories; 10 x 100k co-design projects; 50 x HLF
collaboration projects

NB Community Organisations as Co-Is, funding for

honoraria for participation
Methodological innovation premised upon the idea
of communities as having powerful knowledge.

Projects cover a wide range of issues

relating to understanding and helping
communities to flourish
Participatory arts, wellbeing and dementia, connecting
craft and communities, studies of citizen participation,
historical analyses of community, the use of ICT in
tackling marginalisation, the role of community music,
everyday creativity, regeneration and resilience,
Local food systems, street drinking, co-design methods
and ethics, religious communities, global communities
and shakespeare, families and prisons, crowd-sourcing,
violence in communities, housing, oral history and
heritage, volunteering
And many more .

Valuing multiple forms of knowledge

Everyday Participation
What are the overlooked forms of creative practice that
communities engage in, and how might this be more fairly
supported in comparison with current funding arrangements?
Partners include Arts Council, local sports groups, individual
ctizens

Creative Practice as Mutual Recovery

How can creative practice in arts and humanities support
encounters between professionals, carers, patients, health
practitioners

Productive Margins
Aims to re-shape the way in which decision making is made by
connecting communities in Bristol and South Wales with
researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Cardiff to coproduce new forms of engagement across politics, policy and
the arts.

Methodological Innovation: from

Bees to Boats
Untold History of Volunteering performance
techniques, boat building and cultural
animation to interrogate different
volunteering experiences (PI Keleman)
In Conversation with co-design with morethan-human communities (PI Bastian)
Walking Interconnections environmental
activists and disability groups learning
together (PI Porter)

Re-imagining research causes real

difficulties
Disrupt systems budgets, finance, procurement,
funding processes
Require reflection about what knowledge counts
Demand new metrics and new ways of valuing research
Challenge academics and collaborating organisations to
develop and share new skills
Disrupt traditional academic identities disrupt
traditional claims to knowledge
Create new forms of inclusion and exclusion in research
practices new people are being allowed in, others
are feeling left out
Its exciting but also emotional, heated, and tense

WHAT COUNTS AS A
UNIVERSITY?
WHAT COUNTS AS RESEARCH?

Purpose

The
University
for Capital
(Utility)

The Civic
University
(Praxis)
The Critical
University
(Theoria)

The Popular
University
(Phronesis/
Theorisis)

How does the

university act in the
world?

How is knowledge valued?

The
University
for Capital
(Utility)
The Civic
University
(Praxis)
The Critical
University
(Theoria)

The Popular
University
(Phronesis/
Theorisis)

Purpose

How does the

university act in the
world?

How is knowledge valued?

Develop individual
human capital, engine
for economic growth
e.g. Gibbons

In its purest form

provides research and
education services to
consumers, industry,
govt

What sells? Determined outside

the university through research
investment and individual student
purchasing decisions

Purpose

How does the

university act in the
world?

How is knowledge valued?

The
University
for Capital
(Utility)

Develop individual
human capital, engine
for economic growth
e.g. Gibbons

In its purest form

provides research and
education services to
consumers, industry,
govt

What sells? Determined outside

the university through research
investment and individual student
purchasing decisions

The Civic
University
(Praxis)

Address wider social

needs, solve social
problems e.g. Watson,
Burawoy

Brings specific expertise

to bear in collaboration
with industrial,
professional and civil
society bodies

Negotiated between practice and

theory. Truthfulness through
relevance to action. Evidence and
application.

The Critical
University
(Theoria)

The Popular
University
(Phronesis/
Theorisis)

Purpose

How does the

university act in the
world?

How is knowledge valued?

The
University
for Capital
(Utility)

Develop individual
human capital, engine
for economic growth
e.g. Gibbons

In its purest form

provides research and
education services to
consumers, industry,
govt

What sells? Determined outside

the university through research
investment and individual student
purchasing decisions

The Civic
University
(Praxis)

Address wider social

needs, solve social
problems e.g. Watson,
Burawoy

Brings specific expertise

to bear in collaboration
with industrial,
professional and civil
society bodies

Negotiated between practice and

theory. Truthfulness through
relevance to action. Evidence and
application.

The Critical
University
(Theoria)

Develop conceptual
reason, preserve and
push forward human
reason, contest
totalitarianism e.g.
Collini

Stands outside the

world, acts to create
civilisation and norms
through students and
through public education
and knowledge sharing

Agenda set within discipline &

canon, judged by academy to
contribute to the sum of existing
human knowledge, judged by
society to shape underpinning
conceptions of the world,
knowledge for knowledges sake

The Popular
University
(Phronesis/
Theorisis)

Purpose

How does the

university act in the
world?

How is knowledge valued?

The
University
for Capital
(Utility)

Develop individual
human capital, engine
for economic growth
e.g. Gibbons

In its purest form

provides research and
education services to
consumers, industry,
govt

What sells? Determined outside

the university through research
investment and individual student
purchasing decisions

The Civic
University
(Praxis)

Address wider social

needs, solve social
problems e.g. Watson,
Burawoy

Brings specific expertise

to bear in collaboration
with industrial,
professional and civil
society bodies

Negotiated between practice and

theory. Truthfulness through
relevance to action. Evidence and
application.

The Critical
University
(Theoria)

Develop conceptual
reason, preserve and
push forward human
reason, contest
totalitarianism e.g.
Collini

Stands outside the

world, acts to create
civilisation and norms
through students and
through public education
and knowledge sharing

Agenda set within discipline &

canon, judged by academy to
contribute to the sum of existing
human knowledge, judged by
society to shape underpinning
conceptions of the world,
knowledge for knowledges sake

The Popular
University
(Phronesis/
Theorisis)

Create a good society

for all, empower the
people to be able to
create that society
e.g., Giroux, Appadurai,

Actively develops
popular capacity for
change through shared
learning, research and
teaching

Recognises multiple knowledges,

recognises knowledge embedded
in power relations, knowledge
valued through negotiation judged
against contribution to popular

Purpose

The
University
for Capital
(Utility)

How does the

How is knowledge valued?
university
act in the
e.g.
KT/KE ,Translational
world?(some forms of) CoMedicine

Develop individual Design;

Service
Provision researchDetermined outside the university
commissioned
human capital, engine
(research and education) through research investment and
for economic growth
to externally defined
student purchasing decisions
e.g. Gibbons
needs.

e.g. University-Community

The Civic
Address wider social
Brings specific expertise
Partnerships;
Community
Help
Desks,
University
needs, solve social
to
bear in collaboration
City
Collaboratories
(Praxis)
problems e.g. Watson with industrial,
professional and civil
society bodies

Oral histories, citizen

Negotiated between practice and

theory. Truthfulness through
relevance to action. Evidence and
application.

The Critical Develop conceptual

science, STS blue
University
reason, preserve and
skies research driven
(Theoria)
push forward human
by conversations and
reason, contest
social settings
totalitarianism
e.g.
Collini

Stands outside the

world, acts to create
civilisation and norms
through students and
through public education
and knowledge sharing

The Popular
University
(Phronesis)

ActivelyResearch,
develops Continuing
Recognises multiple knowledges,
popular
capacity(some
for forms
recognises
knowledge embedded
Education,
of)
change through
shared
in power relations, knowledge
co-production
learning, research and
valued through negotiation judged
teaching
against contribution to popular

Create a good society

for all, empower the
people to be able to
create that society
e.g., Giroux, Appadurai,

Agenda set within discipline &

canon, judged by academy to
contribute to the sum of existing
human knowledge, judged by
society to shape underpinning
conceptions of the world,
knowledge for knowledges sake
Participatory Action

The terrain of the great university

debate: opposition 1
Critical University

University for
Capital

Civic University

Popular
University
Who should benefit individual
positional benefit/economic growth
or collective/public good?

Who determines the research

questions?

Opposition 2

University for
Capital

Civic University

Critical University

Popular
University

The great university debate

Civic University

University for
Capital

Critical University

Popular
University

Who gets to decide what counts as

valuable knowledge?

How might this typology be useful (1) ?

As a tool for moving the debate forward
Clarify which questions we are actually arguing about?

As a tool for widening our repertoires in research

When is it help to operate with a civic or a popular
paradigm in research practice? When do we want to
disrupt existing knowledge and when do we want to
harness and apply it?

As a tool for reflecting on current practice

When and why are these different framings of the
university missing? Why is it easier to push for one
particular vision of the university not another? What are
the concerns is it about knowledge, or about
accountability or about agenda setting?

How might this typology be useful (2)?

As a way of identifying unlikely allegiances in
addressing the 21st century canyon
If (and I am aware that not everyone will share
this view) you believe that the current economic,
environmental and social model is unsustainable,
then we need to explore how to reframe that, not
just work within it.
If that is the case, we need to explore which ideas
of the university will help us to do that,
My suggestion is that this means

A new alliance?
Critical University
Civic University

Popular
University
University for
Capital
Are radically different and better
futures imaginable?

To conclude

There are significant and radical changes happening outside universities and
universities are being challenged to respond

The response is often organised around very different sets of questions around
who sets the agenda, around knowledge, around who benefits

If we asked the question how best can universities help us all to imagine radically
different and better futures my proposition is that there will be powerful new
allegiances formed in particular between critical and popular conceptions of the
university.

Often these two ideas are conflated within the idea of the public university or the
civic university and their tensions are obscured. My suggestion is lets be clear
about where these are in tension, lets work out how and where these can be put
into dialogue with each other, if we do that
1. we create institutions that cannot simply be done elsewher; and
2. we create a powerful capacity to imagine different and better futures.

Thank you

Thanks to Bryony Enright, Paul Strauss, Lindsey Horner, Robin

Durie, Kate Pahl, Steve Pool, Andrew Miles, Pat Thompson, Helen
Manchester, Morag McDermont, Gareth Williams, Jasber Singh,
Wendy Larner, Nick Mahony and many Connected Communities
Programme researchers for conversations that have informed this
discussion.

Images

Hire Me - http://blogs.reuters.com/uknews/2009/09/21/raising-the-cost-ofuniversity/
Lecture of strategic optimism from
http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/pictures-fromopen-day/
Group in Garden from http://www.sevenstreets.com/ground-force-mr-seelsgarden/
Man at lectern Council for the Defence of British Universities
Group discussion Occupy University Movement
Chinese University http://lahore.olx.com.pk/free-admission-in-china-s-topuniversities-for-mbbs-b-ds-engineering-iid-519956976
Reverse your decision http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/commentisfree+education/londonm
etropolitanuniversity
All others taken by Keri Facer. Feel free to re-use with acknowledgement.