Universities and Development: Third Role and Social Inclusion

Montevideo, Uruguay, 23 November, 2006-12-20

1.- Framework

This workshop was conceived as an opportunity to present the results of the case study “Universidad de la República”, which followed the guidelines of the UniDev project, and to share the first results of an exploration of the direct linkages between academic research and social inclusion.
Which should be the “third role” of universities, moreover, of public universities? This is a controversial question, not only in the developing world. On the one hand, we have the controversy around the “new” third role of universities: should it be committed to economic development or to development tout court? On the other hand, we have the controversy, mainly present in Latin American public universities, around the “classical” third role: how should extension, born as the third mission in the early XX Century, be conceived today? How should the notion of solidarity be understood nowadays, in the knowledge society, from a university perspective?
These controversies were explored in the case study, which results were briefly presented at the workshop by Isabel Bortagaray. In the Uruguayan case, were there is only one public university, one of the most interesting results is the unusually high expectation that widely different actors put into the “third mission”. From being the North that should guide the country’s development to be responsible to a deep change in culture, the university is seen as an institution that should do much more than teaching and research. This finding confirms from a new angle the idea that universities in developing countries suffer from a “loneliness syndrome”, that is, they do not find easily other actors to support their own transformation. The new angle consists, precisely, in what people expect from the university: why should the university be the North for development? Or the main motor of a wide cultural change? Probably because, regardless all the criticisms it rises, the university is seen as the only actor to which such missions can be entrusted.
One of the approaches to the renewal of the extension mission of the university is to foster the direct relation between high-level knowledge production and problems affecting the most vulnerable population. The hypothesis here is that not only such problems need first rate research to be solved, but even more important, that many researchers are willing to orient their agenda to search for these solutions. Third mission is conceived then as an orientation of research and teaching where social inclusion is an explicit goal.
Two examples of this way of performing the third mission were presented in the workshop. One was related to the need to have cheap and reliable electricity in remote and isolated areas; the other to have access to cheap bio-materials, particularly synthetic skin, for the National Bank of Organs and Tissues. In both cases the intention was to present the perspective of the academic side and that of the user side. The latter was attained, in the first example, by means of a video were the people of “Quebradas del Laureles”, the place were the solution was implemented, give testimony of the way the relation with the university team was established and what they expected from it. In the second case, the user was present in the workshop: the Director of the National Bank of Organs and Tissues. Two professors, heads respectively of the Department of Mechanic of Fluids of the Faculty of Engineers and from the Department of Physics of the Faculty of Chemistry explained the development of the projects involved in both experiences.

2.- The workshop

The workshop was hold at the Sala Maggiolo, the most representative place of the university, where the University Council, which governs the institution, usually met. We include as an Annex the program, but given that it is in Spanish we make a short resume here.
The presentation of the workshop was done by the Rector of the University, Dr. Rodrigo Arocena, the Director of the National Office of Planning, Ec. Carlos Viera, and the Coordinator of the UniDev Project, Dr. Claes Brundenius. These presentations pointed to the importance of universities for the development process and the transformations needed, inside and outside universities, to foster the fulfilment of such a role.
After, Isabel Bortagaray presented the result of the Uruguayan case study, “Regards to the university and its third role”, by means of a precise and concise set of slides. They were in Spanish, but an enlarged English version will be presented at the following UniDev general meeting in Vietnam.
The third part of the workshop, presented in the program as “Knowledge and social networks: two examples of an ongoing agenda”, included the two mentioned examples of “user-producer” relations around research and social problems. The first problem can be put that way: the Uruguayan countryside has been loosing population for decades, particularly young people. A way to stop and even reverse this trend is to provide new types of productive employment and to offer a better quality of life. For both aims electricity, that is, 220volts is a must. Without it eco-tourism, a worth exploring new productive path, is not attainable; access to Internet, for instance, is neither possible without it. But in places like the one studied, 220 volts has been a chimera until now, when a specific approach based on renewable energy, a combination of wind and sun, was developed and a cheap and reliable solution was found.
The second problem relates to the need to have access to cheap biomaterials to be able to democratise the coverage of the National Bank of Organs and Tissues. To give an idea: 20 square centimetres of imported synthetic skin cost U$S 4.000, which makes unaffordable its extensive use to treat burned people, particularly children from poor neighbourhoods that got burned during the winter in important numbers. Research is advancing toward alternative methodologies to develop this and other biomaterials with the same standards of quality and reliability but substantively cheaper. The Bank, an intermediate user between research and the final users, is actively cooperating with these developments.
After all these presentations, a space for debate was opened, where the audience had the opportunity for making questions, comments and suggestions. It was a rich and vivid exchange, particularly due to the diversity of the participants. The accent was put on how to foster in practical terms this way of understanding the third mission of the university, involving university, government, both central and local, firms, organizations of the civil society, public services. A common concern was the need for a better mutual knowledge of the different stakeholders to foster the encounters between demand and research capabilities.
The audience of the workshop included representatives from the two chambers of Parliament, particularly from the Senate Commission on Science and Technology, Secretaries of two Ministries, Public Health and Social Development, people from the cooperative movement, from the Uruguayan Society for the Advancement of Science, from the local government, “bio-entrepreneurs”, deans, faculty and students in general. All in all, around 70 people attended the workshop.
After more than three hours and half of work, we shared a cold lunch outside the Sala Maggiolo, where people continued exchanging for almost one more hour.

3.- The road ahead

The workshop presented a way to understand the third mission of the university and concrete examples of what it means. The discussion put forwards the need to detect and translate social demand into research language to be able to mobilize such third mission. It was understood as well that this is an endeavour where many actors need to be involved. A lot of interest from key players was manifested and a common understanding that this road is worth exploring was established. The UniDev project in Uruguay will continue, as one of his tasks, with the systematic detection of the university research that can be directed towards social demands. We hope to understand better through this approach one of the most direct links between universities and development: third mission and social inclusion.