The web site, http://bit.ly/J0qaqG is open for anyone who wants to contribute to the global communique on Higher Education and Sustainability.
The statement will be taken to Rio + 20 and circulated in policy circles in Europe and elsewhere.
Participation is open to anyone until today 6 pm, Germany time.
Check it out, spread the word and don’t miss out.
Thanks so much

Nicola Buckley, Cambridge University
Nirmala Lall, University of Victoria
Norbert Steinhaus, Living Knowledge Networks
Budd Hall, Global Alliance on Community Engaged Research

For “Big Tent” Group of international networks

You can follow us for the 5th Living Knowledge conference on Twitter: #LK5

Send messages and comments via e-mail to livingknowledge@wilabonn.de

Again an amazing group  with an interesting variety of  backgrounds coming from many different countries joined us for the Summer School. The Summer School is an introductory workshop to the upcoming Living Knowledge conference in Bonn. You can follow the discussions in the conference’s plenaries via live stream.

Enjoy the new issue of the Living Knowledge Magazine, titled ‘Re-Imagining Research Relationships’. You can download the magazine here.
If you want a free printed copy of this issue and haven’t subscribed for the magazine yet, please send a message to the International Science Shop Contact Point.

You can find an archive of the Living Knowledge Magazines and Newsletters here.

In the run-up of the Living Knowledge Conference there will be a Pre-Conference „Summer School“ on Science Shops, from 8-9 May 2012 on the premises of the Bonn Science Shop.

The Summer School aims specifically to those with little or no experience in, or knowledge of, Science Shops or Community-Based Research Offices. By participating in this crash course, you will be able to engage in follow-up discussions during the conference much more easily. It will also allow you to assess options for yourself to start one, should you wish to do so. The workshop will be given by Science Shop coordinators with a long experience, from The Netherlands and Germany. On the second day, colleagues from Northern-Ireland will join the team. During the following Living Knowledge Conference you can meet and talk with many more Science Shop staff from all around the world.
Places are limited, so please make sure to register early. The PERARES project, funded by the European Commission under contract FP7-244264, and the Living Knowledge Network offer this Summer School for all who are interested at the reduced rate of 50 €, which includes morning and afternoon refreshments and the lunch on Tuesday.

• More information about the Summer School and programme

In June 2011 started the Sozialwissenschaftsladen (Social Science Shop), a non-profit-organisation
based in Berlin, Germany, that aims at the mediation between science and society. It tries to strengthen community oriented research and education at Universities and to disseminate interesting societal topics by offering seminars and workshops, writing papers and evaluations, conceptualising own projects and realizing them in cooperation with different partners. The interdisciplinary team (political science, sociology, economy, pedagogy and cultural science) is focussed on the topics: participative research methods, empirical research methods, social, political and cultural change related to the European
Union, ethnicity and migration and education, employment and labour market.
Contact: Sabine Schwirner: schwirner@sozialwissenschaftsladen.de; Serttas Dündar: duendar@sozialwissenschaftsladen.de, www.sozialwissenschaftsladen.de (English version of the website is coming soon)

New Science Shop launched in Grenoble, France

With the start of the new academic year 2011, ADReCA (Association pour le Developpement d’une Recherche Citoyenne et Active ) has officially launched its science shop, called ‘L’Echop’ à Sciences’. A new website online , which will allow NGOs, scientists and students to interact. During the past five years the support of Living Knowledge and PERARES has been essential to enable this project to be realized.
The French partners are the Fondation Science Citoyenne (FSC) and there is a similar project in Lyon. In parallel the ADReCA successfully bided for funding to support research projects, via the Rhone-Alpes regional authority’s “Université Citoyenne et Solidaire” program.
Since March 2010 the ADReCA employs 2 staff, who are building a network of contacts with NGOs and scientists. In June the ADReCA, with the FSC, ran a successful two-day Permanent Dialogue workshop with 30 members of the NGO and scientific community. The conclusions were clear. NGO’s need scientific expertise and the scientific community is willing to work with NGOs but is limited in terms of time and resources for such projects. Information: www.echopa-sciences.org/

Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement is pleased to announce the publication of its fourth volume, a special edition on the theme of ‘Sustaining community-university partnerships’. It is the result of a collaboration between Gateways and the University of Brighton Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP), and is guest edited by Professor Angie Hart and Simon Northmore of CUPP.

Gathered together in this volume are articles from around the world, reflecting on projects and partnerships big and small, young and more established. The articles offer a wealth of detailed material and identify some important characteristics of sustainable community-university partnership working, often in the context of socioeconomic disadvantage. The commitment, creativity and ingenuity on display in these articles suggests that there are many reasons for optimism when reflecting on the sustainability of community-university partnership working. To read more, go to: http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/ijcre/index

An instrument of dialogue to establish a pact between a plurality of actors who share its principles and are
willing to put it to work, as well as to create occasions for dialogue and cooperation is the now published The Sassari Charta for a Community-University alliance. Downloadof the charta at http://universitaterritoriosviluppo.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/chartof-sassari.pdf