University Social Responsibility movement gains traction

The global university social responsibility movement has entered a promising new stage in its development. A new joint project of the University Social Responsibility Network (USRN) documents major expansion in the scale and impact of social responsibility programmes.

USRN was initiated in 2015 by Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which hosts the coalition’s secretariat.

The network is a geographically diverse coalition of 16 universities, hailing from six continents and unified through collaboration to strengthen the university social responsibility (USR) efforts of member institutions and to advance the global movement. Members are located in China and Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, South Korea, South Africa and Brazil.

Primary activities include a biannual international summit, annual student service-learning programmes and conferences, staff capacity-building and comparative research.

USRN is developing a global MOOC (massive open online course), ‘An Introduction to University Social Responsibility’, co-produced by Kyoto University and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It will be launched later this year and, in the collaborative development process, we have found fresh evidence about the current state and future prospects of this growing trend.

We are witnessing a substantial increase in the number and proportion of professors doing community-engaged teaching and research; a dramatic increase in the extent of integration of USR in the full range of disciplines; and the growth of and robust activity in both national and international coalitions of universities devoted to elevating civic engagement and social responsibility.

This is a story of diverse contexts, but common strategies and deepening impacts. While differences in context matter hugely, the most striking reality of this growing international trend is the similarity of visions, strategies and the benefits and impacts that they are achieving.

Sustainable Development Goals

An impressive recent development is the growing focus of many universities’ social responsibility work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Even as the global ranking regimes remain a serious impediment to engaged teaching and research, Times Higher Education has initiated a new ranking that assesses universities’ performance with respect to addressing the UN SDGs.

As the global movement continues to expand, it is redefining the relationship globally between what is academic and the public interest. We find increasingly that professors’ public service work is not a separate, marginal activity but rather an important and central part of how they teach and do research and also an essential way that their students learn.

It is striking to observe how civic engagement and social responsibility are no longer relegated to separate centres of public service, but how they are increasingly woven into the very ethos of the university and its full range of programmes.

New course shares USR experience and strategies

Our new course examines how universities on all continents are creating innovative new ways to increase the social impact and benefits of their teaching and research.

The course shares the practical experience of universities that are creative leaders in the global movement.

The experience of these universities shows how effective social responsibility programmes can result in higher quality teaching and learning, how they can improve community conditions and how they can increase public support for higher education.

It is especially exciting that, through their social responsibility programmes, these universities are producing hundreds of thousands of graduates with hands-on competence in their fields and also a commitment to being agents of social change.

The USRN course also aims to build an expanding global community of practice – a widening group of university personnel committed to exchange and partnership about their social responsibility efforts.

Our collaborative course features the experience of several USRN member institutions. By partnering on the course, they have distilled what they have learned and achieved.

Simon Fraser University in Canada has placed community engagement at the very centre of the institution’s strategic vision. One of its signature commitments is to serve as a “public square for dialogue”. This includes an annual week-long Community Summit.

Today all 16,000 undergraduate students, students in all fields, at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, are required to complete a community service-learning course as a degree requirement, with a strong international component. The scale of this impact is extraordinary. Imagine the global impact if all universities were to follow this example.

In South Africa, the University of Pretoria’s extensive social responsibility programme is supported by a large network of long-term partnerships between community organisations and the university, designed and maintained by several dozen professors and NGO staff.

Kyoto University’s Disaster Prevention Research Institute in Japan is a leading example of how an increasing number of universities are devoting their expertise to predicting and responding to natural and human-caused disasters.

The University of New South Wales in Australia is pioneering ways to elevate the quality and educational outcomes of student volunteering through raising standards and preparing students to be more effective in their voluntary action.

The social responsibility efforts of the University of São Paolo in Brazil place a distinctive emphasis on cultural activities – physically hosting and operating major cultural institutions and providing broad public access to artistic and cultural training and events.

To support its major commitment to USR, England’s University of Manchester has instituted substantial organisational steps, for instance, appointing an associate vice president for social responsibility and a director of social responsibility charged with encouraging and supporting this dimension of work across the entire university.

The power of global coalitions

Our work across national boundaries identifies some promising opportunities for the coming era. First, we need to build the evidence base with respect to student learning outcomes. Our movement continues to be long on rhetoric, yet woefully short on concrete information about what students learn through their USR experience and how.

Second, we need to advance and strengthen the development of corporate policies and practices as a fundamental component of USR (such as environmentally sensitive building design and locally focused purchase of goods and services to foster local economic development).

Third, we must expand international student service-learning projects, thereby encouraging our youth to look at social responsibility beyond their own geographical and cultural contexts.

Fourth, we should get behind the UN SDGs as a defining focus.

And fifth, we need to address what is truly a global communications deficit. The extent and benefits of USR work are far greater than is realised by key constituencies in higher education.

The higher education sector will make greatest progress on these challenges by working intensively together. In this regard, it is very good news that USRN and several other global coalitions are becoming increasingly robust and influential.

These are just a few of them – the Latin American Centre for Service-Learning; the Talloires Network; the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy; Campus Engage (Ireland); Engagement Australia; the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement; and Campus Compact (USA).

USRN’s new online course illustrates the value of global coalitions in higher education, especially at this time of heightened global conflict and restrictions on international exchange.

Dr Stephen Chan is head of the Office of Service-Learning and associate professor in the department of computing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Dr Robert Hollister is professor emeritus, Tufts University, USA. Dr Toru Iiyoshi is deputy vice-president for education and director and professor, Center for the Promotion of Excellence in Higher Education, Kyoto University, Japan. Dr Alison Lloyd is director of international affairs and director of institutional research and planning at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.