Engagement
At UCT, engagement or social responsiveness refers to the utilisation of an academic’s scholarly or professional expertise for public purpose or benefit. This includes various forms of engagement with external, non-academic constituencies, including industry, government bodies and NGOs, and occurs through a number of inter-related scholastic activities.
Since much of MtM’s academic activity occurs at the interface of academia, industry and civil society, both in terms of research and education, it is a natural outcome for MtM to be a platform for engagement and a catalyst for new connections and the co-production of new knowledge. This is in line with the principles of the emergent field of Sustainability Science, which aims to promote trans-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder solutions to the complex problems facing the contemporary world. In all cases engagement with external non- academic organisations has served to enrich the quality of MtM activities and led to the co-production of new knowledge also known as ‘engaged scholarship’.