Excellence in Research leadership requires ethical commitment

Milena Cuccurullo

PhD Education

University of Warwick

Globalisation allows an unprecedented exchange of human resources across the world. This is the future of research and education. Enterprises, Universities and research institutions take huge advantage of this movement, but they must equally take responsibility and work hard to protect the rights of the people who move in search of knowledge and educational attainment. However, they are less likely to effectively protect their students or staff, their researchers in particular, when political interests and divisions prevent or at best limit their efforts. The murder of Giulio Regeni and the detention of Patrick George Zaky illustrate this and present a call for common action.

Giulio Regeni was a doctoral student at University of Cambridge. A brilliant Italian student in his 30s who moved abroad to carry on studying and doing research, like many others. The topic of his research was street vendors’ trade unions in Egypt, where he was arrested, tortured and killed in Cairo four years ago (1). To date nobody has been held accountable for his death. Five agents of the Egyptian security service are suspected to be his murderers (2); and the trial is on-going amidst misdirection from Egyptian government, lack of action from Italy and an embarrassing silence from the University of Cambridge.

The 7^th February 2020, Patrick George Zaky, an Egyptian student at University Alma Mater of Bologna, Italy, was arrested in Egypt accused of ‘harming national security’. He is an Erasmus Mundus student on a Masters in Women and Gender Studies programme, and a human rights activist (3). Patrick is still in a prison in Mansura, Egypt. Unlike Regeni’s case, the University of Bologna Chancellor, Prof. Ubertini, and town authorities have carried out campaigns in Bologna with more than 5 thousand people, asking for Patrick to be freed. Media pressure could be crucial this time to save his life. Other consortia of Universities across Europe have signed petitions in solidarity with the appeal by Bologna University requesting the liberation of Patrick, as this is an issue concerning the right to education and safety of all researchers and students around the world (4).

The murder of Giulio Regeni and the detention of Patrick Zaky call for all HEI to work for unity of visions and efforts in order to make sure that all students and researchers, all citizens in the community of education, are safeguarded, regardless of nationality. Here is where excellence is at stake. Excellence and leadership in research are not measured only by algorithms and funding pots. It is a matter of integrity and ethical commitment. And we all are committed, as students and academics, to speak out for Patrick. If we can join our voices perhaps ‘this time everything will be all right’.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/egypt-frustrates-giulio-regeni-investigation-three-years-on

(2) http://www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/articoli/regeni-tre-anni-da-omicidio-5-agenti-indagati-ma-giustizia-ancora-lontana-03097925-25fa-400e-8412-85b0812f5f6c.html

(3) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/09/italy-alarmed-after-egyptian-studying-in-bologna-arrested-in-cairo

(4) https://magazine.unibo.it/archivio/2020/02/12/arresto-di-patrick-george-zaky-la-mozione-delluniversita-di-bologna

 Italian artist Laika’s mural appeared in Rome, via Salaria, not far from Egypt’s embassy, between 10 and 11 February. It featured Giulio Regeni protecting Patrick Zaky and telling him ‘This time everything will be all right’, and the Egyptian word for ‘freedom’.

: 18 Mar 2020 12:54 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

"We All Have a Role to Play in Peace": From the International to the Local and Back Again

Dr Briony Jones

Associate Professor in International Development; Deputy Director of the Warwick Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development.

Politics and International Relations Department, University of Warwick

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/wicid/

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/jonesb

Geneva Peace Week 2019 took place from 4^th – 8^th December 2019, and in the words of the organisers: “emphasises that each and every person, actor and institution has a role to play in building peace and resolving conflict”[1]. Following the 2017 Geneva Peace Week I reflected on the implications for knowledge of bringing researchers, policy makers and practitioners together[2]. I remain convinced of the benefits and indeed necessity of challenging boundaries between epistemic communities and striving for constructive dialogue between peace makers as broadly conceived. This is of particular pertinence for the fields with which my own work engages: justice, peace, development and human rights. But as I continue to seek dialogue, and to understand the complexities of which this means in practice, I am left wondering what it actually means to claim that “we all have a role to play in peace”.

The oft quoted words from George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” gives us pause for thought here. I strongly agree that every person, actor and institution has a role to play in building peace. But not all roles are perceived to be equal, and not all people are able to determine their roles equally. It is incumbent on all of us to recognise this and to take it into consideration when designing inclusive collaborations or making claims for, of, and about, peace. In my specialist area of transitional justice, the questions of whose justice and on whose terms currently informs much of the discussion between scholars, practitioners and policy makers. More inclusive programmes are increasingly prioritised, and examples range from the national and diaspora consultations undertaken by the Côte d’Ivoire Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation Commission[3], to victim participation at the International Criminal Court[4] and the outreach programme of the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia[5]. The values which underpin and motivate such programmes are important and echo the raison d’être of Geneva Peace Week.

What is notable however is the framing of inclusion and participation, the way in which ‘locals’ are invited to participate in agendas set by others elsewhere, and how collaborative programmes between the Global North and South are too often not the equal exchange of minds and resources that they are purported to be[6]. I will always remember the words of one of my collaborators when he told me at our first project meeting when we were discussing roles: “we don’t want to just do the translations and collect the data. We want to analyse and to share in the research outputs”. If we believe that we all have a role to play in peace then we need to think more carefully about the following issues, among others of course:

1. Narratives of inclusion need to grapple with the ‘deviant’ voice – the individual who does not wish to participate, the institution which acts as a block to reform, the political impasse as peace agreements fail. This deviancy may frustrate the agendas of certain actors but may also illuminate another way of seeing the conflict and responses to it.
2. There is not one version of any actor, be it a ‘local’ or ‘international’ and roles are often changing over time and across contexts. The roles that we all play will not be static or easily captured through programming support.
3. There is a hierarchy of roles. There is a donor who controls the flow of financial resources, there is a community gatekeeper who controls who can participate in meetings, there are the academics who write about distant places and cultures and puts words in the mouths of their research subjects.

: 31 Jan 2020 12:42 |  Tags: Development Geneva Peace Week Human Rights Justice |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Introduction to WICID

Message from the Director, Professor Shririn Rai:

"WICID has been established in 2019 to address urgent problems of inequality and social, political and economic change on a global level.

"Interdisciplinary, critical and robust analysesthrough collaborative knowledge building and exchange characterize WICID’s approach and ensure impact in the fields we work in.

"We will work together with our partners across disciplines and institutions to produce world-class research. Through our Critical Pedagogy and MethodsLabwe will ensure that we develop appropriate, rigorous, innovative and interdisciplinary methodologies to pursue our collaborative research.

"The discipline of International Development is at a key moment in its trajectory, with a shift towards understanding issues of development globally. WICID's global networks will helpus develop a contextual, historicised and critical approach to development issues. This is also an exciting time for International Development at Warwick.

"Our ambition is to make WICID a hub for collaborative, cutting-edge research on international development and to contribute to change making for the better. Please become a member of WICID so that we can keep connected. "

: 24 Jan 2020 12:03 |  Tags: Development Gender Governance |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem