By François van Schalkwyk. African research that forms part of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa – HERANA – project has developed indicators to measure university-community engagement projects, to ascertain whether their activities are connected to the strategy of the institution, are linked to external constituents in a sustainable manner, feed into teaching and generate new knowledge. Read more...

By Rebecca Warden. The number of academics who step outside the ivory tower to engage with the community is growing and universities are using a variety of ways to compensate them for doing so. But institutions that recognise and reward this effort are still very much a minority and the reasons why they find it hard to do are complex. Read more...

The Talloires Network University Volunteer Program, in partnership with Universidad Autónoma de Madrid – UAM – in Portugal and funded by the Santander Group, is a major international student engagement initiative. Read more...

By Munyaradzi Makoni and Karen MacGregor. Basavanagouda Patil is a final year student at the National Law School of India University. Much of his time is spent volunteering at the Legal Services Clinic, whose committee he leads, and which among other things provides legal services for the poor and public interest litigation. The clinic was one of three student projects to win a 2014 MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. “Most young people today don’t have the patience, the instinctual deference to authority, or the parochialism of past generations. They want to make an impact, they want to do it now, and they know there is much that needs to be done,” says Professor Lisa Anderson, president of the American University in Cairo. Read more...

By Thierry Luescher-Mamashela. Student engagement is known to correlate well with retention and success but its impact on developing citizenship competences is hardly studied. Read more...

By Ard Jongsma. Students are often tagged onto international conferences to add legitimacy without giving them real influence. Not so at this month’s Talloires Network conference outside Cape Town, to which 40 student delegates from all over the world were invited on equal terms and where they were given a perfect environment to network with each other and prepare collective input. Read more...

By Rebecca Warden. Engaged universities – those that see engaging with the wider community as part and parcel of their mission – can use these activities to contribute to economic development too. Around the globe, universities are doing this in various ways, some in ways you might expect, others in ways that might surprise you. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. Why is it that while universities talk increasingly about civic engagement, the world is heading in exactly the opposite direction? asked Professor Adam Habib, vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, in the opening keynote at the Talloires Network conference. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. Despite rich and varied experience in the global South, there appears to be a tendency for international dialogue about university civic engagement and social responsibility to be dominated by perspectives of the global North. What are the lessons from the South?
The Talloires Network Leaders Conference held near Cape Town from 2-4 December provided a rare opportunity for universities in developing and emerging countries to highlight their experiences and views, said Professor Nieves Tapia, director of the Latin American Centre for Service-learning based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Read more...