University of Helsinki
Session questions(s):
To what extent your research impact real world decisions or transformations? What are the main barriers across academia and “real life”?
Session description:
The main topic of this session has slowly but surely become economic difficulties related to research. We discussed of why, in our opinion, knowledge tends to stay in the libraries and the researcher’s goal becomes just to publish. The funding challenge impact also how we conduct research and the tools we have available. Co-creation activities and workshops risk to be just a veil of appearance. The discussion revolved also around who is funding: what are the companies interested in taking up our research? Or – which countries? We compared the examples from different countries such as Finland, Italy, Germany and Ghana.
Session lesson(s):
We live and we have to deal with complex systems, but economic difficulties and equal opportunities are still a major struggle to bring fair and just research to the “outside world”. We still need to discuss how education is entangled with meritocracy and politics, power relations and investments. We need to protect ourselves and the education system from academic greenwashing.
Session keyword(s):
funding, power, academic greenwashing
Eugenia Castellazzi
University of Helsinki