What does being an engaged university imply?

For more than twenty years, Prof. Alejandra Boni has tried through different ways and processes to link the university with society. These efforts have been related to teaching graduate and undergraduate students, discussing not only relevant topics but also trying to facilitate experiential learning as well as politically relevant learning.

In her research Prof. Boni has been committed to do socially relevant research in a collaborative way with public and non-profit stakeholders. All her experiences have generated some degree of transformation, but they also have limits. Especially in her Spanish environment Prof. Boni talks of the clash with an institutional culture heavily shaped by a competitive, bureaucratic and market-driven approach.

In this seminar, she will try to share her own experiences, hearing other perspectives and discussing what it means to bring about change in an academic context. But also the challenges and how we can overcome these in a collaborative way.

About the speaker

Alejandra Boni has a PhD in Human Rights and Democracy from the University of Valencia. She currenntly is Professor at the Department of Project Engineering at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. She is a Deputy Director of the research centre Ingenio (CSIC-UPV).  Ten years ago, she worked at ISS as a visiting researcher, collaborating with Des Gasper, Kees Biekart, and others.