Universities Sign up for UN Academic Impact

Alison Moodie
For the last six years the United Nations has been pursuing a novel idea: gathering academic research globally into a practical framework. Last November, the idea finally came to fruition when Secretary General Ban Ki Moon launched the UN Academic Impact in New York. So far, nearly 600 universities have signed up to participate, making the initiative one of the fastest-growing cooperative measures of its kind.
The Academic Impact aims to put the vast resources of universities worldwide at the disposal of the UN in an effort to expedite the agency's ability to cope with global problems in a more efficient and coherent manner. "Academic institutions have an invaluable role to play in strengthening the work of the United Nations," said Ban Ki Moon at the launch.
The initiative was conceived as an additional tool in the UN's arsenal to bring more attention and focus to the larger aim of implementing the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight targets that respond to some of the world's toughest challenges such as poverty, HIV-Aids and child mortality.
Educators and development experts increasingly agree that higher education can be exploited far beyond the confines of the ivory tower, and can play an important role in economic and social development.
"The alignment between the aims of the UN and the aims of education really aren't much different," said J Michael Adams, President-elect of the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP), the lead member organisation of the Academic Impact and President of Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.
"We're all committed to building and creating a successful, prosperous world, yet there are very few linkages between the UN and universities," he told University World News.
The UN has laid out 10 broad guiding principles that center around ideals such as human rights, sustainability, peace and educational opportunities. Each participating university is required to undertake at least one project that satisfies one of the designated principles.
For example, a university committed to the principle of promoting sustainability through education, may come up with a way that a housing development can be built quickly following a natural disaster. The UN will then step in and put the idea forward to the relevant agency, and devote its considerable resources to putting the idea into action.
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Source: University World News, Issue No: 0166, 10 April 2011