common good first

From October 7^th to October 9^th, 2019, the partners of the Erasmus+ project Common Good First from South Africa, Scotland, Iceland, Norway and Spain came together in Cape Town, South Africa, in order to wrap up the project which ends on October 14^th, and to launch it into its next phase. Two professors from the University of Alicante, Diana Jareño and Guadalupe Ortiz, participated in the event to participate in the discussions and share the work that has been developed at the University of Alicante during this time.

During the past three years the partners have collected and documented social innovation cases in South Africa, working with social innovators from around the country to help them share their experiences through digital stories and profiles to be shared with the world on a digital platform. At the same time the project has been tackling the digital divide in South Africa, by increase the digital skills of the community managers and social innovators who participated in the project’s digital storytelling modules organized in several of the partner universities.

From May 21^st to 23^rd the University of Alicante was host to a meeting of the Common Good First (CGF) consortium, receiving partners from South Africa, Scotland, Iceland, and Norway. With only 6 months remaining in the project, the meeting was crucial to prepare for the project final event, reviewing pending activities and deliverables and discussing the launch and sustainability of the digital platform and the digital storytelling labs.

During this time, the International Project Management Office (OGPI) of the University of Alicante, with the support of professors from the Máster Universitario en Innovación Social y Dinámicas de Cambio,  organized a round table “The Spanish & European perspective and Common Good First” with social innovators and entrepreneurs from around Alicante, as well as students, academics and the CGF partners.

Earlier this month the University of Alicante participated in a dynamic social innovation event that took place on September 6th and 7th at Scotland House in Brussels. The event was organized by our colleagues from Glasgow Caledonian University, with the support of the European Commission, in particular the International Capacity Building Unit. They wanted to bring together participants from various points around the globe in order to envisage, propose and, subsequently, to establish a worldwide network that explores and demonstrates how universities can support social innovation more effectively. 

This aspiration evolved through the experience, in particular, of three projects funded under the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education programme, and of which the University of Alicante is a partner: Latin American Social Innovation Network, Southeast Asian Social Innovation Network, and Common Good First in South Africa.

Common Good First (CGF) partners from South Africa, Scotland, Iceland, Norway and Spain met at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown South Africa, for a project consortium meeting and community engagement symposium, from May 7^th to 9^th.

Last week representatives from universities in Europe and South Africa met at Glasgow Caledonian University to discuss Social Innovation and Digital Storytelling in the framework of the Erasmus+ project Common Good First, coordinated by GCU and in which the University of Alicante is a partner as leader of the Quality Monitoring work package. The UA was represented by OGPI senior project manager Cristina Beans. The consortium was also joined by the EU appointed Project Officer from Brussels and a representative from the Scottish Government’s Department of Social Enterprise, Social Innovation and Social Investment, who are also contributing funding to the initiative.