Abstract:

The current research was performed within the ENtRANCE Erasmus+ project in order to identify how may Portuguese Higher Education Institutions (HEI) provide independent participatory research support in response to concerns experienced by civil society, namely based on EU societal challenges. Even though the Biosense project (Castro, Serra, Neves, & Nunes, 2013) assumed the creation of the first Science Shop in Portugal, it was only active between 2011 and 2013 and there is still no formal evidence of any other one. Nevertheless, several Portuguese HEIs already provide informal services on behalf of citizens and local civil society.

In order to better understand the context of local communities, a CSO (civil society organizations) needs study was conducted in Portugal, as well as in other partner countries of the project. This study was conducted using a mixed methods approach consisting of literature review, online survey and qualitative interviews to the diverse types of CSOs. The results reveal that the majority of Portuguese CSOs need HEI support to help vulnerable people like children and old people at risk, handicaped and poor people, etc. Thus, the activities that promote well-being, health and an inclusive society are the most common, but all societal challenges are partially covered by Portuguese CSOs except Intelligent, green and integrated transport. Thirty-one organizations (83,2%) would like to collaborate more with HEIs through research and they provide.

Teachers and researchers’ competences at Maia University Institute (ISMAI) and Maia Polytechnic Institute (IPMAIA) cover all areas of the 7 societal challenges. In particular, they collaborate with Research Methods’ course students. The students get to know the research topics provided by the CSOs in the needs study and then they create multidisciplinary groups and choose one of the research topics/CSOs in order to perform two semesters of applied research using mixed methods. These multidisciplinary students with the support of the teachers and researchers of each research area contribute with an innovative method starting by qualitative and proceeding with quantitative approaches in order to balance between depth and breadth (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) of the research topics they chose. The end result is a case study (Simons, 2009) which is the best short format to publish the results but especially to share them with the CSOs. Therefore this collaborative process, similar to a new service development (e.g. Johne & Storey, 1998), may be repeated every school year in order to formalize a Portuguese Science Shop that provides research services to civil society.

References:
[1] Castro, I., Serra, R., Neves, D., & Nunes, J. A. (2013). Oficinas de ciência - Da governação de ciência e tecnologia à coprodução de conhecimentos. Centro de Estudos Sociais.
[2] Johne, A., & Storey, C. (1998). New service development: a review of the literature and annotated bibliography. European Journal of Marketing, 32(3/4), 184–251.
[3] Simons, H. (2009). Case Study Research in Practice. London. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446268322
[4] Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Keywords:

Societal challenges, Science Shop, Higher Education Institutions, civil society organizations, qualitative, quantitative, case study.