The goal of this project is to enhance academic quality of higher education by exploiting overlapping educational fields and developing innovative joint digital and dialogical educational methods, concentrating thematically on social justice, culture and welfare.
Our topic is chosen because the particular partnership between the two institutions in Norway and India offers privileged cross-cultural and comparative perspectives on this matter.
Pressing issues
Social welfare and socioeconomic inequalities are pressing issues as the Covid-19 situation has contributed to increasing societal inequalities worldwide and since state regulations and welfare politics have been met with considerable globalizing challenges, such as the expansion and naturalization of neo-liberal thought
and practice.
New knowledge in this field will be presented in MA- and P.h.D.- thesis and in a joint peer reviewed anthology along with other digital outputs which will provide the resource for future sustainable education.
Partnership
Our goal will be pursued according to the addendum to the memorandum of understanding between Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) and the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) which was signed in November 2020. The memorandum and this UTFORSK-project are extensions of broad and long-lasting cooperation between USN and SPPU which has resulted in joint USN-SPPU academic positions.
The project involves Departments of Health, Social and Welfare Studies andCulture, Religion and Social Science at USN and Department of Sociology at SPPU.
Co-work with selected Indian and Norwegian NGO partners will strengthen the project's public and labor market relevance.