EADI / UniPID Seminar on 19 April 2007, Helsinki, Finland
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UniPID (Finnish Universities’ Partnership for International Development) is organising, in cooperation with EADI (European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes), an international symposium on partnership in research for development, in Helsinki, Finland, on the 19th of April 2007. The symposium will be followed by an EADI Executive Committee meeting on the 20th of April and a meeting of the Board of UniPID. A meeting for the Nordic Group of libraries (NorDoc) will also be held in concert with the symposium. The EADI ExCom meeting is bringing leading European development researchers to Helsinki, as the ExCom meets in Finland for the first time within the 30 years of its existence. The symposium is covered by the UniPID Plan of Action which, therefore, takes the coordinating role in the organisation of the conference.
THEME:
The aim of the symposium is to look at the problematic of accessing development knowledge from the perspectives of the southern and northern peripheral partners in particular.
The Background
The field of development research is very much dominated of the perspective of the 'northern partners' evident in the facts that access to the results of research on development and the material on which this research is based is not easy in the southern hemisphere. The idea of partnership in development, promoted in the international for a at least since Johannesburg 2002, should include both parties, and provide equal opportunities for both the north and the south to produce and make use of knowledge on development. This should make up the basis for equal exchange of ideas and information, itself an essential element of the concept of partnership. It is through high quality research open for critical scrutiny that we can address the complex challenges of sustainable development in the world. What are the specific challenges and problems faced by the southern and peripheral development researchers in relation to accessing, disseminating, collecting and archiving (storing) data, documents and results of research on development? What should be done in order to strengthen the research partnership between the north and the south in these fields? These are among the questions that the Symposium will attempt to cover, by looking at four specific themes; Development Archives; ICT and Open Access; Dissemination of Development Research and Access to Published Information.
The Aim of the Symposium
By addressing these issues, the international symposium aims to contribute to the strengthening of the role of southern and peripheral development researchers in producing development knowledge through assessing the challenges faced by the southern and peripheral development partners in relation to the access to development knowledge.
The Target Audience
The symposium will provide a forum for researchers, university students, civil servants and the media to gain knowledge on these issues. The approximated number of Finnish and foreign participants is 100 people, including people from the fields mentioned above, Members of the EADI Executive Committee, UniPID Board Members and Members of the Nordic Library Group.
Planning Committee:
Liisa Laakso, UniPID, University of Jyväskylä (Chair)
Kristiina Asp, Development Policy Library, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Kirsi Brolen, Department for Development Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
Basuded Guha-Khasnobis, UNU-WIDER
Outi Hakkarainen, Service Centre for Development Cooperation, Kepa
Helena Jerman, Development Archives Project, Institute for Development Studies
Juhani Koponen, Institute for Development Studies, University of Helsinki
Milla Mäkinen, UniPID, University of Jyväskylä
