The 27th November saw a gathering of researchers at various stages of their careers, both students and professors, to examine how to facilitate a better relationship between research and practice in their work.
The Workshop was jointly organized by UNU-GCM and CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs). Masterclass presentations were offered by Professor Iain Chambers of “L’Orientale” University of Naples and Professor Kevin Robins of City University, London, and Professor Parvati Nair of UNU-GCM opened an afternoon of discussion. It was particularly exciting to hear the developing ideas of research students regarding how their own research projects might relate to policy concerns. Some key ideas that emerged included the importance of examining different sorts of policy, and the relationship between policy and the political. One student mentioned the important distinction between implicit and explicit policy implications and there was debate about whether there should even be top-down policy in some of the areas discussed. The event also offered UNU-GCM researchers Valeria Bello and Tendayi Bloom to present some of the methodological concerns they had had in their work and some of the solutions they had reached.