I think in the United States there is a need to discuss globalisation and what fair and inclusive globalisation means, because the U.S. is such a rich country and has such an impact on the rest of the world. There are an enormous number of human and social development challenges that have wide global effects. For example, the issue of free trade and how it is not always the same thing as fair trade needs to be more widely understood in the U.S. I also think that there is a lack of awareness of how important the climate change phenomenon is going to be.

 

Part of the challenge for the United States is to move beyond the Bush administration's focus on the security aspects of globalisation rather than the huge and growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the world. Emphasizing control by military strength or increasing US wealth at the expense of others are not viable strategies for a more globalized world. I think that a more fair and inclusive globalisation is more likely to produce security and prosperity in the long-term.

 

 

Higher education institutions have a lot of potential for helping to solve some of these challenges. But universities are often not organized to deal effectively with practical problems. Different faculties and schools may develop their own approaches to some of these challenges. And so what we may see in many universities is an uneven process of grappling with challenges and thinking about what to do about them.

 

In some US universities, including my own, there's an increasing commitment to the notion that students really ought to be engaged with the global arena, not just a national or local arena.  Increasing attention to global problems may lead too more effective response, or at least wider recognition, what is going on in the larger world.

At least some issues are raised at the school and department level. At Harvard there is a lot of emphasis on the independence of different schools and centres rather than tight integration in university-wide actions. So problem analyses or initiatives may emerge from schools or centres whose leadership and faculties are particularly interested in those issues, or as their student bodies become sensitised to them.

 

For example, at the Kennedy School of Government we have been developing teaching cases from many different countries that can be used to help our students and faculty understand the differences or similarities across countries and economies. We have done that in part because the students demanded it. About 40% of our students come from outside the US, and they said to us, "We came here to study at the Kennedy School of Government, not the 'Kennedy School of American Government'."  Some faculty recognized the importance of building more global perspectives, but it helped that the students pressed us to expand the perspectives presented in some of our courses.

 

It is also true, as university leadership recognizes the occurrence of the impacts of globalisation, there is more response to the need for more-than-national perspectives. University-wide decisions to promote engagements with global perspectives and problems can have large impacts. I think there is growing encouragement of students at all levels at Harvard to learn about other cultures and to understand global problems and dynamics.

Practice-research engagement refers to situations in which researcher and practitioners come together to understand and influence some problem they agree is important. They share each other's information and perspectives, and they join forces to expand our knowledge and build better theory while they create innovations in practice and policy. Ideally practice-research engagement advances both our basic knowledge and our repertoire for applied practice relevant to the problem area.

 

There are a number of problems for which this engagement is not so appropriate. But practice-research engagement can be very useful for social problems for which we need action as well as understanding. The idea of practice-research engagement has emerged from many different traditions. For example, the Brazilian sociologist Paolo Freire in his adult education work with poor grassroots groups developed the concept of 'conscientization' to describe educational processes that helped build political awareness and understanding as well as participant literacy and academic skills. His engagement with grassroots groups produced a concept that galvanized new theory and ideas about education as well as new awareness, independence and action by participants. 

 

 

Practice-research engagement can help universities become more relevant and valuable to the societies in which they are embedded. It can catalyse the development of theoretical perspectives and new knowledge that is important to social problem-solving. It can foster student skills and attitudes needed to be effective citizens and social actors.  And it can make universities vital resources for recognizing, understanding and catalyzing action on critical social problems and issues. 

 

At the same time, practice-research engagement can be disruptive from the point of view of academics. It may lead to concerns that university research will be distorted by the interests of other actors, such as potential co-optation of researchers by close ties to business or capture of research perspectives by powerful government interests. In my view practice-research engagement ought to engage marginalized groups as well as powerful and wealthy stakeholders. It is often easier for researchers to work with wealthy and powerful groups and organizations than it is to engage with poor and disenfranchised populations.  But the results of the latter may be dramatic:  When worked with very poor women in Bangladesh to discover that very poor people will reliably repay loans in the absence of collateral, he challenged dominant theories of motivation as well as helped to create the micro-credit movement.  Practice-research engagement can help universities make themselves more relevant to their societies, but it could exacerbate the growing disparity between rich and poor if is not embedded within a set of values that says, "Universities should contribute to all members of the society, not just the wealthy and powerful".

 

Globalisation and technology development are creating a world in which change, interdependence and complexity are increasingly a feature of life. Generating capacities for learning and innovation by individuals, organisations, and societies is critical to managing the kinds of challenges that globalisation poses. Creating institutions of higher education that foster research-practice engagement rather than their separation can increase learning and innovation capacities at many levels and on many issues.