University College Cork - National University of Ireland, Cork
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Cork is designated a UNESCO Learning City, and the initiative is a collaboration between UCC, the City Council, Cork Institute of Technology and the Cork Education and Training Board. The learning City designation recognises "progress made in developing Lifelong Learning for all, and in doing so enhancing the Inclusion, Prosperity and Sustainable Development of the city.’ Following on from the Cork Learning City Festival in 2017, a "call to action" was published, committing the signatories "to achieving sustainable
development in all its dimensions, recognizing the links between all of its social, environmental and economic aspects in order to secure a sustainable future for all." More information is available via the following link http://www.corkcity.ie/learningcity/

Community University Biodiversity Action (CUBA) is a partnership initiative between SECAD Partnership, Cork communities and University College Cork.

The initiative brings community expertise together with academia to collaborate and build capacity to address Ireland’s biodiversity crisis. It supports a range of community university partnership activities including a series of coordinated Key Action Projects being delivered over a five year period (2019-2023), and ongoing activities delivered through student placements and CARL(Community Research Academic Links) community based research projects.

https://www.ucc.ie/en/civic/initiatives/cuba/

The Community-Academic Research Links initiative, CARL, is located at University College Cork and invites non-profit voluntary or community organisations (CSOs) to suggest potential research topics that can be pursued by students on their behalf across a wide range of academic disciplines in UCC.

CARL is based on the ‘Science Shop’ model and follows a 40 year European tradition with similar initiatives on-going in some of the highest ranked Universities in Europe and worldwide. CARL’s mission is to provide independent, participatory research support in response to concerns experienced by civil society.

The CARL initiative is committed to :

promoting the scientific method and research in the community;

working in an ethical and scientific way to promote knowledge in society;

working with community/voluntary groups which would not normally have the resources to pay for or carry out their own scientific research;

facilitating and empowering those groups with limited resources to carry out research;

not substituting real jobs with free labour;

supporting collaborative partnerships and participation in research;

working in an open, transparent, honest and accountable way;

promoting equality, justice and diversity;

opposing discrimination of any sort;

promoting positive social change to address poverty and exclusion;

pursuing social, environmental and economic sustainability.

https://www.ucc.ie/en/scishop/ac/