Universities and Non Governmental Organisations

Focusing on legal, cultural and socio-economic factors, this volume considers the reasons for which institutions of higher education and NGOs fail to cooperate as frequently and effectively as one might expect, comparing the Polish case with the landscape for collaboration in other European countries: Portugal, the UK, Slovakia and Austria. In the opinion of the general public, universities and NGOs would be natural partners for effective collaboration in many fields. They are indeed, but mainly in theory. This book examines the reasons why this is the case and what possible models of cooperation and facilitated dialogue between institutions of higher education system and NGOs could transform this theoretically optimal union into practice. The authors start with Poland and analyse legal, cultural and socio-economic factors, which impact upon the current state of affairs. Subsequently they move on to consider cases from four other European countries: Portugal, Austria, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. Then they propose possible solutions, areas for further research and formulate recommendations for strengthening future cooperation between the two main types of actors which shape education and increase awareness in civil societies. Universities and Non-Governmental Organisations will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in higher education and research, public discourse and civil society. The Introduction and Chapters 6, 7 and 13 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDFs at under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.