Tracks

31. Community or communities? Universities and their multi-stakeholder dialogues. Engagements, barriers and conflicts in driving universities for the sustainable development of their ecosystems

Track_Corazza_Cisi_Cottafava_31

Organizers: Laura Corazza, laura.corazza@unito.it | Maurizzio Cisi | Dario Cottafava

Although much has been said about the role of universities as actors for guaranteeing a contribution for the sustainable development using education and research, little has been said about universities as a moral, economic, social and environmental anchor institutions with social responsibilities.

The management of multi-stakeholders networks, the identity role of the university in the territory, the presence of different communities and ecosystems, the presence of conflictual values, are some of the ways through which universities can implement the so-called SDG17 on creating partnerships for the goals.

Consequently, engaging, communicating, dialoguing, reporting are becoming even more necessary than in the past, to respect the social contract between universities and their stakeholders.

This scenario is opening up new vast pathways for researches like: bottom-up strategies, engagement and reporting; conflictual values and shared consensus; new accounting, counter-accounting, dialogic accounting strategies; organisational barriers, conflicts, hiding strategies in disclosing values and missions of universities; struggling with hyper-transparency of public universities; the role of new technologies in facilitating such dialogues.

This track is conceived for being multi-disciplinary, although transdisciplinary outcomes are welcome. The research environment will be friendly and supportive so contributions coming from young researchers and PhD students are welcome.