Bridging the Gap Between the Researcher and the Community

Dr Rajesh Tandon, as Co-Chair, UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research & Social Responsibility in Higher Education will be delivering a lecture on "Bridging the Gap Between the Researcher and the Community in India: PRIA’s Engagements in Promoting Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Educational Institutions" to Master's students of Global Health and Clinical Epidemiology in Barcelona.

Dr Tandon's lecture will focus on PRIA's engagement with academia since its inception in 1982, in an attempt to bring practitioner knowledge and academic expertise together on one platform. In order to bridge the divide between the world of practice and the world of academe, it has undertaken number of initiatives to promote engagement between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and local communities for fostering knowledge generation and mutual learning. These engagements have been in the form of supporting student internships, collaborative research, joint conferences along with universities, designing new courses in partnership with academia etc. By doing this, PRIA has helped HEIs realize their social responsibility towards community needs and aspirations. Therefore, through extensive networking with an array of HEIs in India, PRIA has been instrumental in bringing universities closer to communities, by assuming varied roles in the process, such as that of a facilitator, supporter, and partner.