This post first appeared on the Living Knowledge website at http://www.livingknowledge.org/lk8/cfp/
Call for Proposals
The 2018 edition of the Living Knowledge Conference will be hosted by the Corvinus Business School, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary, from 30th May to 1st June. On 28th and 29th May pre-conference events and an accredited summer school are welcoming you.
The LK8 Conference is inviting academics, practitioners, activists, social innovators, research funders, science educators and communicators, citizen scientists, policy-makers, non-governmental organisations, artists, interested community groups and citizens to share their views and experience on innovative activities at the science-society interface.
The last Living Knowledge conference hosted more than 250 participants from 25 countries.
To receive all news and updates, please visit the LK8 Facebook event. Format related guidelines are in the Proposal Guide.
The Theme of LK8
Enriching Science and Community Engagement
In order to build on and enhance the public engagement in research practices, the conference would like to bring together the existing networks of action research and action learning, citizen science, community-based research, engaged scholarship, open science, science shops, participatory action research, participatory governance, RRI (responsible research and innovation), and social innovation. Different communities often use such umbrella terms inside and outside science and research encompassing various transdisciplinary and public engagement practices. Even though these practices meet renewed societal interest in Europe and attract considerable acknowledgement from a range of disciplines and research cultures, in most societies, such democratic spaces remain only rare exceptions.
In recent years such participatory arrangements have run parallel and become pervasive in science-society interactions. In fact, they are regarded almost a compulsory step in the promotional cycle of scientific production. Does this help a true engagement with science and communities? This question warrants the need to revisit opportunities of renewal that these different approaches can offer in the changing landscapes of scientific culture in Enriching Science and Community Engagement. In general, they all aim to let citizens, policymakers, industry and the education community catch a glimpse of magic behind the research scenes; imply an evolving role of “society in science” and “science in society”, and share a focus on a shift in how knowledge becomes legitimised in society. Nonetheless, their interactions have been limited to date. The conference would like to contribute to a wider learning across silos and will offer active and interactive spaces to build on the potential synergies between these community-based approaches and facilitate transposition or convergence of emerging participative and inclusive solutions.
Participants are invited to critically reflect on public engagement challenges, on the complex impacts of their science-community partnerships, on social acceptance of research and innovation processes. E.g.
How can science shops better connect with civil society?
How to move beyond the existing practices to engage all RRI stakeholders and also marginalized groups and communities?
How citizen science could truly involve people to live up to the expectations of scientific citizenship and empowerment?
How could action research and participatory methods contribute to the shaping of responsible research and innovation agendas?
What is the epistemological importance of science and community engagement activities?
How can researchers live up to the societal expectations in community engagement settings? What are the long-term and real benefits?
How do researchers lower the barriers to participation or build trust among participants with different worldviews?
What new arrangements, governance models exist or can be created/practised addressing the instrumentalisation of these practices at the personal, organisational, and funding levels?
The LK8 programming is facilitated by the Steering Committee members and representatives of conference Local Organising Committee (LOC). If you are unsure how to start, please read our Proposal Guide first. To get the feeling, please watch the videos recorded in and programmes of previous Living Knowledge conferences, see below.
7th Living Knowledge Conference 2016 in Dublin (Video)
6th Living Knowledge Conference 2014 in Copenhagen (Video)
5th Living Knowledge Conference 2012 in Bonn (Video)
4th Living Knowledge Conference 2009 in Belfast (Video)
3rd Living Knowledge Conference 2007 in Paris (Video)
2nd Living Knowledge Conference 2005 in Seville (Proceedings)
1st Living Knowledge Conference 2001 in Leuven (Project Output)
Be prepared to contribute and debate in interactive and hands-on sessions, workshops and other types of activities. Get in contact with the LOC members to assist you in joining a proposal team or write to the Steering Committee members for assistance, advice and direction or the LK national contact points for finding partners to your session idea!
If you are not part of an academic organisation that is capable of funding your participation, we will do our best to assist you. The LOC is working on sponsoring opportunities and will offer partly funded passes to speakers bringing new ideas or perspectives especially from civil society.
Key dates
Deadline for contributions: 5 January 2018
Deadline for summer school applications: 2 February 2018
Notification of acceptance/rejection of contributions and summer school applications: 23 February 2018
Online registration opens: 23 February 2018
Early bird rate by 30 March 2018
Further information:
Proposal guide
LK8 Facebook event