Forging university-led community partnerships through AsiaEngage

As top representatives of the main partners of a new Asian network stood with their hands on a darkened glass ball, the word AsiaEngage lit up in red and blue and swirled around the sphere. It represented the birth of the new AsiaEngage umbrella organisation for community-engaged universities.

It did not require much crystal-gazing to see the commitment and enthusiasm – this was already evident at the "Regional Conference on Higher Education-Industry-Community Engagement in Asia: Forging Meaningful Partnerships”, held from 7-9 May in Malaysia, where the launch took place.

Much work had already been put into building AsiaEngage, which comprises the Asia-Talloires Network of Industry and Community Engaged universities, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) University Network and the ASEAN Youth Volunteer Programme.

By the close of the conference it was clear that universities and non-governmental organisations alike were beginning to think of community engagement not as an ad hoc activity, but one that was important to sustain and could become as vital to universities as teaching and research.

Numerous examples of how community engagement is already embedded in university work in Asian countries were described at the conference.

In Indonesia, community service is required for academic promotion. A community’s endorsement of a university research project can open doors to resources from Thailand’s research fund. The Philippines has endowed some of its public universities with a public service mandate to carry out work in the community, to cite just a few examples.

But as Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin, vice-chancellor of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) – which acts as the AsiaEngage secretariate – said during the opening plenary, like-minded institutions want to work regularly “for greater impact”.

“This is a platform that is not just for universities but for NGOs, foundations and industry to also collaborate with us,” said Saran Kaur Gill, executive director of AsiaEngage and deputy vice-chancellor for industry and community partnerships at UKM.

Shared problems

It was clear from the conference that there is much for universities in the region to share, even if a region like ASEAN is economically, socially and culturally diverse. Challenges such as poverty, disasters and the environment lend themselves to university-community engagement on a regional scale.

That was illustrated graphically by John Gwynn of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who pointed out that during natural disasters in Asia the ratio of women to men who lose their lives is of the order of 14 women to every man.

But during the 2004 Asian Tsunami, 100 women lost their lives to every man. It was a statistic that elicited gasps from around the conference hall. The need to investigate was clear to all.

“It’s the community that has the knowledge, wisdom and learning. It is for the rest of us to catch up with that and to discover why they are so resilient in the face of all these disasters. And how, through research and understanding, we can help them share their own knowledge with other communities affected by the same issue,” said Gwynn.

Building long-term relationships with local communities was essential for universities, delegate after delegate said.

But the tyranny of university rankings, which rely heavily on research output, requires university academics to ‘publish or perish’.

Scepticism about the benefits of community engagement can also undermine the projects. It was clear that community engagement had to be integrated into research for university-community engagement to be sustainable.

Mutual benefits

The mutually beneficial nature of university-community engagement was stressed by Rajesh Tandon, an international expert on participatory research. Many local people, he told the conference, have never entered the “sacred domes” of the university, yet possess knowledge that is relevant and important.

“There is a need to relate more practical knowledge with the more theoretical,” Tandon said. Many delegates also pointed out that it was important to respect communities and learn from them, rather than simply tapping them for research purposes.

“Partnerships are not sustainable unless all parties benefit,” said Tandon, who is soon to become joint holder of a newly established UNESCO chair on community-based research and social responsibility in higher education.

“Applied knowledge is going to be increasingly valued as part of an academic qualification. More and more it is in the application that innovation happens. The most important skill in community-based research is to be able to facilitate reflection in the community.”

There needs to be a balance between community needs and institutional research, said Nat Vorayos, vice-president for research and academic services at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. In community-based research, research questions have to come from the community.

Building relationships with communities

Yet the relationship must be nurtured to be beneficial.

Some communities feel imposed upon, warned Sukhgij Ysothonsreekul, vice-president for research and external relations at Naresuan University in Thailand.

This was echoed by the OECD’s Jaana Puukka, who said: “Universities in many countries have been accused by the community of being used as their research targets.

“You may have huge tensions between the university and some communities. We have to mediate and have to bring people to the table,” Puukka said.

The benefit of a regional grouping such as AsiaEngage is that organisations can share experiences to overcome some of these obstacles. For example, Rajesh Tandon advised that “once you share the [research] findings, you [must] share in both locations: in the community and in the university".

Ethical safeguards may also need to be built into the relationship, the conference heard.

Scientists cannot go into communities without their informed consent, said Prospero de Vera, vice-president for public affairs at the University of the Philippines – Diliman.

There may be reasons for this, and building trust is crucial. “There have been cases where they have had traditional knowledge stolen from them and used to make products for commercial profit,” De Vera said.

Bagus Aryo, advisor on research and community services to Universitas Indonesia, explained that countries like Indonesia and Cambodia needed government permission to go into a community. “If you have a new relationship it’s a problem. You have to build your relationship first.”

Building relationships with NGOs

It is not just the relationship with the community that must be managed, but with NGOs as well.

Francisco Volpini, director of the coordinating committee for the International Voluntary Service headquartered at UNESCO in Paris, pointed out that both universities and NGOs tend to be self-sufficient, so a new mindset is needed to manage the partnership.

“Things will be a bit more complicated when we try to work together,” he acknowledged. “We need to learn to change before we can actually go ahead.”

NGOs have had many bilateral collaborations with universities. But “are we ready to accept an identity that goes well beyond the territories and boundaries that that we built for ourselves? And because we built them, we can also demolish them and change to build other things,” Volpini said.

As Nithi Nesadurai, president of the Environment Protection Society of Malaysia, said. “We cannot live by ourselves and solve problems by ourselves. It’s a really big ask”.

Industry and government

While the conference was on higher education-industry-community engagement and included representatives from industry, the main focus was on university-led community engagement and how industry could support this as it looks to step up corporate social responsibility.

Government was represented by Malaysia’s Deputy Minister for Higher Education Saifuddin Abdullah, who emphasised that in building partnerships, universities must not put their own objectives second to the needs of industry or government.

“Don’t worry so much about the objectives of the government of the day, or whoever wants to be the government. Because if [university-community engagement] is not done for the sake of the noble values and objectives of the university, then you may end up becoming a government contractor, unfortunately, or a contractor of industry.”

He stressed that academic freedom and university autonomy were important in forging university-industry-community engagement.

“From the government, what I can say is: Tell us the truth; do the research as it is. If we are wrong, tell us we are wrong. If we are good, tell us we are good,” he said because “unless universities do that we will all be wrong in the long term".

Delegates were eager to grasp the challenges and put community engagement on a sound and sustainable footing, and in particular to ensure quality in university-led community engagement.

As Albert Tan of Hong Kong Baptist University put it: “The elephant in the room is quality assurance”.

This is one of the major tasks ahead for AsiaEngage and one on which organisations such as the ASEAN University Network have already begun working to find relevant measures and indicators.

Looking into the crystal ball once more, this is perhaps the greatest challenge for AsiaEngage for the future. As one delegate said: “We need to know when doing good is good.”