Universitas Programme aims at uncovering, documenting, valorizing the knowledge embedded in different innovative experiences of local human development
The Universitas Programme is one of the working tools of the KIP International School (www.kip-un.org). Originally set up in 2001 by ILO, UNDP, and UNOPS, Universitas is based on the premise that taking forward the values and commitments of the main international summits of the ‘90s and the Millennium Assembly (Millennium Platform) requires, amongst other things, innovating current development pra
ctice and the conceptual and methodological tools upon which it is based. In this process, universities and research centres have a fundamental role to play. The KIP International School, through the Universitas Programme, works with academics, researchers and students who are interested in contributing to this process and in developing research and education partnerships with innovative development experiences in their own territories and through an international network. Universitas is also based on the conviction that many innovative experiences of local human development, in its many dimensions, exist everywhere. In uncovering, documenting, valorizing and legitimizing the knowledge embedded in these experiences and in helping communities to transmit this knowledge outwards and upwards into national and international policy arenas, universities and research centres can make an important contribution. Universities also have an opportunity to take up this new knowledge and incorporate it into innovative teaching and capacity building and research. Since its inception, Universitas has established working relationships with universities and local development experiences and their actors in Albania, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Macedonia, Mali, Morocco, Nicaragua, Senegal and Spain and other relationships are in the process of being consolidated
