Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Universities, Inclusive
Development and Social
Innovation
An International Perspective
Editors
Claes Brundenius Bo Göransson
School of Economics and Management School of Economics and Management
Lund University Lund University
Lund, Sweden Lund, Sweden
Increasing inequality causes serious social and political tensions in society. This
book offers a new perspective on the roots, reproduction and possible political
response to inequality. It links increasing inequality to the access to knowledge and
learning. A series of national case studies analyze how universities respond to
increasing inequality. They show that while most countries have seen progress in
terms of inclusiveness through broadening the recruitment of students, there are
wide differences when it comes to how and to what degree research agendas have
been directed toward social needs and social innovations. The book is of special
interest for experts in charge of science and technology policy and for university
managers. It constitutes a welcome counterweight to the current tendency to push
national university systems toward marketization
Bengt-Åke Lundvall
Department of Business and Management
Aalborg University, Demark
In a world with growing inequality, universities are challenged to make a difference.
The practitioners that contribute to this book show how this is done in their institu-
tions. The challenges they face are clearly presented in the introductory and con-
cluding chapters. This is a book worth reading for anyone working on social
innovation and inclusion in or outside of universities in the developing or developed
world.
Fred Gault
Professorial Fellow, UNU-MERIT, and Professor Extraordinaire
Tshwane University of Technology
v
Acknowledgments
During the 11 years of research work carried out by the UniDev network, numerous
persons have been involved as participants, either in national case studies, as peer
reviewers, or in other project activities. They are too numerous to be listed here, but
we would like to thank them collectively for their enthusiastic contributions which
provided valuable insights as to how representatives of the nation state, industry,
academia and civil society view different aspects of the role of universities in knowl-
edge production and inclusive development.
We gratefully acknowledge the support to the UniDev Network by the Swedish
International Development Authority (SIDA) and the International Development
Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Claes Brundenius, Bo Göransson, and José Manoel Carvalho de Mello
2 Challenges of Rising Inequalities and the Quest for Inclusive
and Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Claes Brundenius
3 Inclusive Knowledge Policies When Ladders
for Development Are Gone: Some Considerations
on the Potential Role of Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Rodrigo Arocena and Judith Sutz
4 Social Development as an Academic Mission of Brazilian
Universities: Public Policies and the Case of the Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Thiago Borges Renault, José Manoel Carvalho de Mello,
and Fernando Araújo
5 Universities and Inclusive Development in Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Carlos Aguirre-Bastos
6 Universities, Inclusive Development, and Social Innovation:
Does That Debate Matter in Cuba? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Jorge Núñez Jover, Galia Figueroa Alfonso,
Ariamnis Alcázar Quiñones, and Tamara Proenza Díaz
7 Beyond Revolution and Actualization: The Potential
for Social Innovation in Cuba’s Non-state Enterprise Sector . . . . . . . 147
Annika Voltan, Julia Sagebien, and Ernan Sarmiento
8 Fostering the Developmental Role of the University
in Uruguay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Rodrigo Arocena
ix
x Contents
xi
xii Contributors