PAR e SDGs

In order to achieve the SDGs, a societal transformation is necessary and all actors must be mobilized.

The method of Participatory Action Research is a very useful tool when pursuing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. 

PAR:

• strengthens the collaborations between researchers, communities and civil society
• can be used to face local issues (such as resource management, gender equality, etc.), resulting in greater ownership of local problems as a step towards sustainable development
• contributes towards the development of new knowledge and insights on various societal challenges linked to SDGs, playing an important role in providing sustainable solutions

Adapt PAR to SDGs

In order to use the PAR method for SDG purposes we should adapt it to the needs of Sustainable Development Goals. We can achieve that by doing one of the following:

Frame locally usable research

Build Knowledge in partnership

Learn new competencies

Ways that PAR can be adopted and contribute to an informed understanding of SDGs: 

Frame locally usable research

• Researchers should frame their research questions, which may produce locally useful knowledge that can transform into useful actions. 
• Regular interactions with locals may generate research questions, relevant to the achievement of SDGs in a local level. 
• EXAMPLE: 

SDG9 is targeting resilient infrastructure and sustainable industrialization.

• Engineering faculty and students at HEI may study specific infrastructure gaps from a resilience lens in a city or district.
• Departments of energy, minerals and mining may find interesting research topics on green technologies for local industry. 
• Students and faculty of economics and business may define their research to support small/medium businesses in that location, making them more resilient. 

• Engineering faculty and students at HEI may study specific infrastructure gaps from a resilience lens in a city or district.
• Departments of energy, minerals and mining may find interesting research topics on green technologies for local industry. 
• Students and faculty of economics and business may define their research to support small/medium businesses in that location, making them more resilient. 

Build Knowledge in partnership

• Researchers may need to create structures for realizing partnerships with institutions and professionals in various fields.
• It is important to be mindful of the existential power differentials among partners, their respective capacities and capabilities to contribute to the partnership and its impacts on such collective efforts.
• A well thought out and calculated partnership increases the impact of the process.

EXAMPLE: 

SDG11 focuses on improving the quality of urban life. 

• Researchers can partner with municipalities to contribute new knowledge for improved urbanization and governance of urban services. 
• Most cities lack capacity to generate and maintain habitation level data, especially where rapid migration is occurring. 
• Several faculties ̶ statistics, urban studies, planning, economics ̶ can support such research. Studies of land use in urban areas and in-situ improvements in housing infrastructure may be carried out by faculty of architecture, geography, and engineering. Operations research faculty and students may undertake mobility analysis to provide insights into transportation design in cities. 
• Once such partnerships are built, ongoing nurturance of relationships by researchers may enable a wide variety of research in support of SDGs.

Learn new competencies

CURRENT SITUATION:

• Current training in research methodology in most universities does not prepare students to build partnerships. 
• Not much attention is paid to attributes like critical thinking, conscientization and ethical orientation. 
• Training in research methodology does not teach how to integrate disciplinary interests with local research priorities. Students and their teachers do not know how to share their research findings with local stakeholders.

• If a mutually beneficial partnership with local communities and institutions—business, government, civil society— is built, research partnership may become supportive of new knowledge and its use. 
• In order to be able to undertake such partnerships and locally relevant research, students and researchers need to develop certain additional competencies. 
• Research training can include:
  • understanding of multiple forms and sources of knowledge in society, and skills required to learn from them, 
  • understanding on ethics and values in research, power dynamics in partnerships, development of self as a researcher, etc.
  • competencies in knowledge mobilization can also be learnt
• Researchers interested in contributing to the achievement of the SDGs, through their research expertise, may need to invest in learning new research competencies for both students and faculty.