International Partners

The following lists international models of university-community collaboration:

  • The American Political Sciences Association (APSA). A section of the APSA produces resource material for Civic Engagement in third level Education.
  • The American Psychological Association (APA) has over 10 divisions with a role in Civic Engagement.
  • The Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD) was established in 1995 by the Community Development Program at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research. The ABCD Institute focuses it work on capacity-building community development. 
  • The Canadian Association for Community Service Learning is a national association established in 1999 to support the active participation of students, educators and communities in Community Service-Learning.
  • Campus Compact is a U.S. national coalition of nearly 1,100 college and university presidents dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement, and service-learning in higher education.
  • Centre for Democracy and Citizenship in the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs was established in 1989 in the University of Minnesota aiming to develop theories and practices that enrich democracy.
  • The Center for Information & Research on Civil Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) was established in 2001. It is based in the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy and is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Carnegie Corporation of New York.
  • The Character Education & Civic Engagement Technical Assistance Center’s website provides information on character education & civic engagement, as well as strategies that support academic goals and other reform efforts. It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS).
  • The Coady International Institute is world-renowned as a centre of excellence in community-based development. The Institute was named in honour of Rev. Dr. Moses Coady, a prominent founder of the Antigonish Movement, a people's movement for economic and social justice that began in Nova Scotia (Canada) during the 1920s.
  • Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) is a nonprofit organisation that promotes health through health through service-learning, community-based participatory research, broad-based coalitions and other partnership strategies between communities and higher educational institutions.
  • Community – Higher Education – Service Partnerships (CHESP) is a project of JET Education Services that aims to support South African Higher Education Institutions to engage in the development of historically disadvantaged communities through the development of appropriate institutional policies, strategies, organisational structures, and accredited mainstream academic programmes. Central to the CHESP approach is the development of partnerships between communities, higher education, institutions and the service sector.
  • The Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI), at the National University of Ireland, Galway, was established in 2001.  The project aims to place communities at the centre of debate and educate students for civic engagement.  CKI has four  main strands; Volunteering; Service Learning/Community-Based Learning, Research and Knowledge Sharing. 
  • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP) at the University of Brighton was established in 2003 to improve the relationship between the University and its local communities. Cupp focuses on Student learning in the community, research helpdesk for community organisations, partnership projects between the University of Brighton and local communities.
  • Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) is national longitudinal study of the United States higher education system. It was stablished in 1966 at the American Council on Education, the CIRP is now the nation’s largest and oldest empirical study of higher education, involving data on some 1,700 institutions and over 10 million students.
  • Democracy 2000 is a U.S. base NGO founded in 1995 to research and disseminate tool to produce better public policy and engage citizens more productively in political life. 
  • The Indicators of Engagement Project is a Campus Compact’s project funded by a three-year grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to combine documentation and dissemination of best practices of the engaged campus with an organizing effort to help campuses achieve broader institutionalization of civic engagement.
  • The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) was founded in 1953 to further in successive generations of American college youth a better understanding of the economic, political, and ethical values that sustain a free and humane society. It published a report titled The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions based on a research by University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP) to determine what colleges and universities are teaching their students about America's history and institutions.
  • The International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy (ICHECRD) is a multi-national study focused on institutions of higher education as strategic institutions in democratic political development.
  • The International Science Shop Network ‘Living Knowledge Network’ is a resource designed to improve community based research cooperation in different thematic fields. Living Knowledge Network defines Sciences Shops as “small entities that carry out scientific research in a wide range of disciplines - usually free of charge and - on behalf of citizens and local civil society”.
  • James F. Ackerman Center for Democratic Citizenship at Purdue University provides programs and resources for educators to implement citizenship programs and opportunities affecting active student involvement in schools and communities.
  • Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service was established in 2000 to support the core Tufts University's mission of promoting civic engagement.
  • The Journal for Civic Commitment is a twice-yearly, online journal dedicated to the discussion around service learning, which connects the academic curriculum to service and civic engagement in communities, both locally and globally.
  • Journal of College and Character is a peer reviewed journal published by the Hardee Center for Leadership and Ethics in Higher Education at Florida State University. The journal focuses on how colleges and universities influence, both intentionally and unintentionally, the moral and civic learning and behaviors of college students.
  • The Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement is a joint publication of the Institute of Higher Education and the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach of the University of Georgia. The Journal is a peer-reviewed publication that welcomes submissions from a broad range of scholars, practitioners, and professionals.
  • The Learn and Serve America Programme was established during the 1990s has furthered America’s tradition of civic participation and volunteerism by making grants to integrate community service with curricula through service-learning.
  • Measuring Citizenship Project is an instrument developed by Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy in Rutgers University in 1997 for measuring the impact of service-learning and other forms of civic experience on citizenship such as participatory orientation, sensitivity to other groups, civic duty, civic participation, and fairness.
  • The Michigan Journal of Community Service publishes scholarly articles in the area of service-learning MJCSL is a peer-reviewed journal consisting of articles written by faculty and service-learning educators on research, theory, pedagogy, and issues pertinent to the service-learning community.
  • The Netter Center for Community Partnerships is Penn’s primary vehicle for bringing to bear the broad range of human knowledge needed to solve the complex, comprehensive, and interconnected problems of the American city so that West Philadelphia, Philadelphia, the University itself, and society benefit.
  • The Political Engagement Project (PEP) describes and assesses the impact of 21 undergraduate courses and extra-curricular programs designed to foster informed political engagement, broadly defined to include community engagement with a systemic dimension and other aspects of public policy, as well as electoral politics at local, state, and national levels in the United States.
  • The Society for Values in Higher Education is a United States based association of educators and other professionals established in 1999 aiming to sustain an amiable and committed fellowship of inquiry into the values informing both higher education and the life of citizens generally.
  • The U-M Ginsberg Centre at the University of Michigan strives to engage students, faculty members, university staff, and community partners in a process which combines community service and academic learning in order to promote civic participation, build community capacity, and enhance the educational process.
  • The United States President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll is a recognition program is designed to increase public awareness of the contributions that college students are making in the United States within their local communities and across the country through volunteer service.
  • The Universities and Social Commitment Observatory aims to identify, disseminate and transfer higher education experiences linked to the social commitment of higher education institutions.
  • The Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy in Rutgers University’s project areas included democratic public, technology and democracy, service learning and civic education, and global civil society.