PASCAL was created to connect higher education with those who make and carry out policy: an equal partnership to give practical effect to lifelong learning linking place, social capital (including balanced social and economic development), and (lifelong) learning.
In the following discussion Longworth suggests that university scholars and their institutions tend to dominate our discourse, a view supported by Osborne. Zipsane looks to rebalance the partnership and dialogue, calling for more attention to and involvement of ‘civic society as a whole and not least private business’. “If possible we should stimulate debates in which a broader spectrum of regional societies [including] private-public collaboration…’
Commenting ‘offline’ on the exchanges above about universities, Norman Longworth asks “whether they gave the impression that PASCAL is purely an inter-university organisation seeking to redefine HE roles”. He asks: “should there not be a place for non-university dialogue - for comment to allow local and regional authority people for example to express opinion on learning regions, or a forum for the human part of human capital? Perhaps a free-for-all OTB strand with no barriers or subject restrictions”.
Also offline, Mike Osborne remarked that this was “just one strand of discussion that is university focused. There are other strands of discussion that are not”. He continues: “Your point though is important and that is to ensure that those not in universities and those [elsewhere and] less 'expert' are part of exchanges. However it is not as if they are not given the opportunity or facility, but maybe we need to encourage those who view themselves as outsiders (even if we don't) to be more involved.”
In response Henrik Zipsane, who is both CEO of the mid-Swedish Jamtli Foundation and a Professor at Linköping University, argues that “We need parallel debates and we need to accept that they will develop and grow at different speed even though they are all equally important. At the same time Norman [Longworth] has a point as we want to preserve the PASCAL environment balanced between HEs and regions.”
“I have reflected lately over the development I see in Scandinavia and indeed in my own region, and think that by ‘regions’ we may have focused too much on the public bodies and too little on the civic society as a whole and not least private business. If possible we should stimulate debates in which a broader spectrum of regional societies will feel tempted to participate. In order to achieve that we need to bring private-public collaboration more to the centre of research initiatives and to the discussions.”
We have important questions here about how OTB is and might be best used, and lurking behind that about PASCAL itself. How do we break the near-monopoly of university people and university thinking to connect with those who ‘do as well as think and write’? It is a challenge that I invite other readers to comment on.
It will also be a central challenge for the next annual PASCAL Conference in Catania, which will ask itself how universities really can and do engage with serous real-world crisis such as Catania and Europe face as migrants drown or reach a wealthy but hostile North. It is also the focus of the Sixth Big Tent Communique to be issued then. Your comments are invited elsewhere on this Pascal OTB site.
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