Last revised 01 July 2016
An Initiative for an Egalitarian World
A Draft Proposal for a Research, Teaching, Policy and Outreach
Development in University College Dublin
Equality Studies Centre
(Co-ordinators of the Proposal)
‘Our campuses educate our citizens. Becoming an educated person means
learning lots of facts and mastering techniques of reasoning. But it means something
more. It means learning how to be a human being capable of love and imagination.
We may continue to produce narrow citizens who have difficulty understanding
people different from themselves, whose imaginations rarely venture beyond their
local setting. … But we have the opportunity to do better, and now we are beginning
to seize this opportunity. That is not ‘political correctness’; that is the cultivation of
humanity’ (Professor Martha Nussbaum, Harvard University, 1997: 14)
Aim of the Project
In line with the University’s mission to be an inclusive and global university, and with
its own aim of promoting greater understanding of and concern for equality both
within Ireland and internationally, the Equality Studies Centre, in collaboration with
colleagues from a wide range of faculties, is embarking on the university-wide project
‘An Initiative for an Egalitarian World’.
The aim of this project is to make UCD a world leader in research and teaching on
equality, justice and human rights. Its goal is not only to create a global centre of
teaching and research excellence in relation to equality, social justice and human
rights but also to integrate research programmes with outreach activities promoting
social inclusion and policy analysis. Ultimately it is intended to work for the
establishment within UCD of an Institute for Global Justice, Equality and Human
Rights with a strong Majority World orientation.
The new initiative will be modelled on a style of operation that has been pursued
successfully in Equality Studies and which has resulted in the Centre being now
recognised as a global leader in egalitarian thinking, theory and practice1. The
Equality Studies Centre, in collaboration with interested colleagues within the
University, is well positioned to initiate this process. There is scope for a new and
imaginative development in this field and the project will contribute significantly to
the mission of UCD as the leading public university in Ireland devoted to serving all
diverse communities, locally, regionally and globally.
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See appended Overview of Recent Achievements of the Equality Studies Centre.
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Objectives of the New Initiative
While the nature of the new project will be influenced by a number of factors within
and without the university, an indication of its possible shape is reflected in the scope
of the stated objectives. These are:
 To develop UCD as a world leader in emancipatory, transformative and critical
research inquiry in the context of developing an interdisciplinary programme on
global justice, equality and human rights.
 To build on the success of the Equality Studies Centre, cognate departments and
individual staff members in the University over the last 10 years in combining
analytical and normative discourses and methodologies in the analysis of issues of
equality, social justice and human rights
 To develop interdisciplinary and pluridisciplinary teaching and research
programmes within the cognate fields of the university, at undergraduate, outreach
and postgraduate levels in co-operation with individual staff, departments, centres
and faculties
 To build upon and enhance the research and teaching capacity of UCD in all fields
of scholarship relating to equality, social justice and human rights
 To develop research-led policy and teaching partnerships with civil and public
institutions devoted to the promotion of local, regional and global justice
 To develop a public policy forum grounded in a set of interactive meetings
offering a framework for active debate of critical public issues
 To provide a public policy education and training function on issues related to
justice, equality and human rights.
 To create a body of scholarship that will lead the world intellectually in divining a
vision for a new, inclusive, egalitarian global order.
Guiding Principles
The initiative will be guided by principles of deep democracy, academic excellence,
love, care and solidarity, and ethical integrity, in all of its work. It will be led by
scholars who are global leaders in the field of equality and social justice, and by
activists from communities and bodies that are working to end global and local
injustices. Its governance structures will be collegial, democratic and caring.
Fields of Activity
In the pursuit of ‘An Initiative for an Egalitarian World’, it is envisaged that broad
arenas of activity such as the following will define a developing work programme:

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Mobilising Resources and Interests
Research, Teaching and Outreach Development
Policy Enrichment and Capacity Building
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Mobilising Resources and Interests
1. The establishment of a new cross-faculty network within UCD maximising the
impact of the interests and expertise of staff relating to global justice and
egalitarian perspectives
2. The development of a programme of research, teaching, policy and outreach work
involving a team of visiting scholars, activists and UCD staff
3. The development of research and teaching alliances with institutes focused on
issues of equality and social justice in leading universities worldwide and the
parallel establishment of a Visiting Scholars Programme.
4. The establishment of research and teaching alliances with leading universities
serving Majority World populations and the development of partnerships with like
minded academics in such institutes
5. The development of Research Coalitions with organisations working with
marginalised peoples locally, nationally and globally.
Research, Teaching and Outreach Development
1. Developing new styles of research (emancipatory and transformative research
in which the Equality Studies Centre is already a leader in the field) and new
approaches to research (linking empirical, analytical and normative modes of
research inquiry) across multiple disciplines. These will be manifested not
only in the nature of the research pursued but in teaching programmes such as
the following:
 An advanced Empirical Research Training programme in the Principles and
Practices of Emancipatory and Transformative Research Inquiry which would
be of interest not only to doctoral candidates and established scholars in UCD
and other institutions but to relevant stakeholders in the voluntary and
community sectors.
 A programme of Critical Theoretical Research Training. Such research
training would be unique to UCD
2. The development of a series of policy-relevant integrated research and
teaching programmes. Each course will have a global, regional (European) and
Irish dimension and be led jointly by visiting scholars and UCD staff who are
specialists in the different fields. The programmes will draw on the
experiential knowledge of activists in dialogue with the traditional researchbased knowledge of academics.
3. In line with plans to develop a strong interdisciplinary focus in teaching and
research in the University, it is envisaged that the project will result in a menu
of courses that can be taken as options within existing degree programmes.
Where there is no clear overlap with existing programmes, new degrees will
be developed. The following courses and programmes are among those
envisaged:
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 Utopian perspectives for a new global order based on interdisciplinary and
pluridisciplinary analyses
 Globalisation, Europeanisation and Social Justice
 International (including European) Human Rights Conventions, Charters and
Agreements
 Rethinking the Law, locally and globally
 Devising New Economic and Social Models
 Democratising the Media locally and globally
 Women’s place in the Global Order
 New Visions of Democracy: a Framework for Inclusive Political Institutions
 Food Security, Health and Well Being
 Equality, Education and the Knowledge Economy
 New Colonialisms in the Cultural Spheres
 Housing Security, Private Property and Human Rights
 Public Services and Privatising Services
 Leadership of Public Institutions
 Asylum Seekers and Refugees – Global, Regional and Local Responsibilities;
 Love, Care and Solidarity: Making the Invisible Visible
 African Studies – led by a Majority World university
 Dominant Ideologies
 Sustainable Development
 Energy, Transport and Communications
 Social Inclusion and Diversity
Policy Enrichment and Capacity Building
1. Developing a dialogue with public authorities, statutory bodies, voluntary and
community organisations in Ireland involved in social justice, human rights
and equality work with the aim of developing courses and programmes that
are relevant to their immediate policy needs
2. Working in co-operation with interested non-governmental organisations in
developing an innovative outreach and capacity building education
programme for groups and communities working for equality and human
rights for the purposes of building their future policy and operational needs.
The programmes will be designed on the Certificate and Qualifier model
already operating successfully in the Equality Studies Centre and other
departments in the University. While the focus of such programmes will
initially on developing capacities in the Irish non-governmental organisations
(NGOs), it will work in co-operation with Majority World NGO’s and
universities to devise similar programmes elsewhere
3. Establishing a Public Policy Forum based on a set of interactive meetings
offering a format for active debate of critical issues. Engaging interested
academic staff, scholars, community leaders, legislators and policy makers,
the Public Policy Forum will provide an environment in which public policy
solutions are cultivated
4. Designing and delivering a high profile Annual Public Lecture Series on
Global Justice, Equality and Human Rights
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5. Developing the network within UCD, continuing to identify colleagues who
are interested in being involved in the emerging project and finding the
resources to enable them to be engaged
There are very different time frames associated with these possible fields of action.
Some will be developed only over the long term while others (such as the network
within UCD and the Visiting Scholars Programme) could be put in place in the
coming year. They also have varied resourcing implications, and funding possibilities
for different components are being explored. For example the Equality Studies
Centre submitted a proposal in June 2004 to Development Cooperation Ireland under
its Development Education Grants Scheme for resources to operationalise the global
dimension of the project.
Institutional and World Wide Networking
The new initiative reflects UCD’s advocacy for the creation of collaborative and
interdisciplinary connections within the institution. While it is at an early stage of
development, the Equality Studies Centre is deeply committed to the ideal proposed
and greatly encouraged by the support and interest it has met to date. There is a range
of staff with a keen interest in research and teaching relating to global and local
justice. Already there are expressions of interest and support from senior and junior
staff in all of the faculties contacted to date – Human Sciences, Agriculture,
Interdisciplinary Studies, Arts, Architecture and Engineering, Medicine, Veterinary
Medicine and Commerce. There are many interested in making UCD, not only the
lead research and teaching centre of excellence on issues of global justice and
equality, but also the lead practitioner of social inclusion.
This early stage of development also involves learning from the models in operation
in institutes and centres throughout the world focused on issues of equality or global
justice. These include the Real Utopias Project at the Haven’s Centre, University of
Wisconsin, Madison; the Multi-Disciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy
at Harvard University; The Earth Institute at Columbia University; The Initiative for
Policy Dialogue at Columbia University; the Ethical Globalisation Initiative (EIG);
the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN); the United Nations University; and the
recently ESRC-funded initiative in Edinburgh University on Equality, Diversity and
Devolution (the Equality Studies Centre in UCD is a partner in this).
.
Rationale for the Proposal
Challenges Facing the University
There is little doubt that the position of the University is changing in society.
Universities are increasingly challenged to become more socially inclusive in their
intake and more engaged with society generally. There is a growing political demand
to promote diversity in the university body, not only in terms of the socio-economic
profile of students, but also in terms of their age, ethnicity, disability and citizenship
status (Department of Education and Science, 2003;HEA, 2004).
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Other changes correlated with these developments present more serious challenges.
Universities are under increasing pressure to serve the agendas of powerful political
and economic interests, be these mediated by government or communicated directly
by commercial interests. While the new liaisons and expectations bring interesting
opportunities for innovation and development in selected fields of research, they also
present challenges to the university as to the very purpose of its existence.
In broad socio-political and economic terms, the university plays a key role in the
development of three major systems of social practice, locally and globally. First it
plays a role in developing the intellectual infrastructure of commercial institutions and
business operations that are largely governed by the principles of profit maximisation.
Second, it plays a vital role in academically underpinning the civil and public
institutions of society that operate outside the profit nexus. The latter institutions are
governed by the principle of public interest and public trust: the community,
voluntary and public bodies that form the core of these institutions are designed to
serve the universal or common good of all members of society. Finally, the university
has a role to play in informing and developing our understanding of the domain of
affective relations; the latter are governed by principles of care, love and solidarity
and are especially developed in the family and other designated care institutions.
The challenges that these various domains of social practice present to the university
are manifold, not least the challenge presented by the differences in values and
preoccupations across the domains. The key to being a dynamic and global university
however, is ensuring that no one domain is neglected at the expense of the others.
Most leading universities in the world have major programmes spanning across the
sectoral interests of society.
This is a sensitive issue in Ireland given the stated preferences of the HEA and the
OECD that Universities must undertake more commercially oriented research. While
there is no doubt that the University has both a need and a responsibility to work with
the private sector, as a public institution it cannot be driven by the values of that
sector. Quite understandably, the ethical principles and priorities of the business
sector are not synonymous with those of a public interest body, such as a university
(Eisenberg, 1987). If universities become too reliant on commercially funded
research, then there is a danger too that the interests of the university become
synonymous with the commercial in the public mind. This would be to undermine the
very independence of thought that is the trademark of university research
(Blumenthal, 2002; Lieberwitz, 2004). Such a development would also compromise
public trust in the scholarly integrity of university research. This is happening already
in sensitive areas such as food production, genetics, biotechnology and environmental
protection (Monbiot, 2000).
There is an inevitable tension between the public interest goals of a university and the
self-interested goals of the market. We need to face up to this tension and ensure that
the values underpinning one domain of society do not gain pre-eminence in other
domains where they are not appropriate. If universities lose their independence, their
autonomy and impartiality on matters intellectual, then they have no clear public
utility. Quite simply, there is no reason for the average taxpayer to fund institutions
that are silent on matters of public concern. If the university voice is silent either
because it is already ‘owned’ by powerful funders (and it is accepted that these could
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be State as well as private institutions), or because the scholars within it are afraid or
unpractised in using their voices, we are in the business of making ourselves
redundant. This is an especially sensitive issue in Ireland where trust has broken down
with so many major public institutions over the last 10 to 15 years. This poses a
question for public universities, especially a major national university such as UCD:
what are its core duties to the body public and how is it addressing these duties? It
clearly has a duty to provide a critical, research-informed voice in all fields of
scholarship. How is it operationalising its voice? Are we merely purveyors of the
received wisdom of our age, or do we present new paradigms, new models for action
that will ultimately serve the greatest good of the greatest number? What checks and
balances are in place to ensure that our research, teaching and community
programmes are serving the public good in a holistic sense?
Public universities were established to promote independence of intellectual thought,
to enable scholars to work outside the control of powerful vested interest groups.
Scholars are artists of the intellect, granted the freedom from necessity to write and
research on the presumption that they do so in a manner that is disinterested in the
purest sense of that term. It is widely understood and assumed that academic
independence and objectivity is the guarantor of the public interests; it is expected
that university scientists and scholars equate their self-interest, in research terms, with
the public interest. While the public know that research conducted by commercial
operations and powerful interests within the government and the State can and is often
subject to political interpretation, in line with the interests of the funders, it is
assumed, rightly, that this does not happen in the university.
There is therefore a widespread public trust and belief that the university employs
scholars whose task it is to undertake research for the public good. There is a hope
and expectation that those who are given the freedom to think, research and write will
work for the good of humanity in its entirety. Consequently, university research has
been funded by the public purse for the greater part, even in countries such as the US;
it is estimated that between 70 and 80 per cent of funding for university life sciences
research in the US is public funding (Blumenthal, 2002). While there may be an
arguable case for creating closer links between the university and commercial
interests, the research and teaching agenda of a national university is much wider than
this.
The university is designed to serve the weakest and most vulnerable in society as well
as powerful economic interests. It has a major responsibility to inform and vivify the
work of the public sector, and the voluntary, community and care sectors, both locally
and globally. It is the lynchpin of our cultural, political, affective, spiritual and social
lives, as much as it is there to advance economic development. Unless the university
plays a central role in building the civil infrastructures of society by advancing
thinking in cognate fields, economic developments in the future will be in jeopardy.
The civil, public and care infrastructure of society is the lifeblood that courses through
the veins of economic development. It is the civil, public and care institutions that
drive the heart of the body public. They ensure that the services, resources and
understandings that are vital for change and development are renewed and
reinvigorated on an ongoing basis.
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The obligation to promote diversity and inclusiveness is not just confined to research;
it also applies to student intake and staffing. As the New Era and Disability Support
programmes have already shown in UCD, diversity brings its own rewards. A diverse
student and teaching body enriches the intellectual life of the university. The
differing domain assumptions of students and staff, arising from diverse biographies
and cultural backgrounds, help redefine and vivify the paradigmatic assumptions of
the disciplines with which they are engaged (Gouldner, 1970).
The Global Challenge
While UCD is already servicing many of the sectoral interests identified above
through its various faculty structures and research programmes, it is time now to
address the new challenges presented to us in a globalised civil, political and caring
order. We need to initiate new institutions and systems encapsulating a vision for the
University commensurate with the challenges presented by globalisation, particularly
the ethical, human rights and social justice challenges.
One of the major challenges facing the world is the challenge of addressing global
injustices within and between nation states. While the globalisation of trade was the
catchword of the 1990s, the globalisation of social justice, equality and human rights
is the catchword of the 21st century, not least because the threat that injustice poses to
the political and economic security of the world itself. The globalisation of trade can
and is being complemented by the globalisation of human rights and egalitarian
discourses. The development of the World Social Forum, the European Social Forum,
and the Irish Social Forum are all indicative of the growing power and impact of the
non-governmental bodies in organising and shaping the future of global history. The
2002 World Social Forum included delegates from 4909 worldwide organisations and
some 40,000 participants (World Social Forum 2002). At both national and
supranational levels, laws and policies developed by state actors are increasingly
assessed in light of human rights standards. At national level, the government has
passed several new equality and human rights laws over the past decade. Equality and
human rights provisions are also central to the Belfast Agreement of 1998. At
European level, the European Union has recently committed itself to placing a
fundamental rights charter at the heart of the Union’s constitutions for the first time.
The EU has also further developed the human rights and equality strand of its external
relations.
Moreover, as has been noted earlier leading universities throughout the world are
themselves establishing institutes focused on issues of equality or global justice. The
case for developing a university-wide initiative on equality, social justice and human
rights is therefore compelling, when one takes account of national, European and
global developments, both inside and outside the University.
Why UCD?
First it is important to recognise why Ireland is an ideal location to develop an
initiative for an egalitarian global order. It is one of the few states of Europe that does
not carry the negative legacy of a colonising history: it has considerable moral
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credibility on the global political stage. It is strategically located within Europe as an
English-speaking country with strong ties not only with North America, but also with
the many countries of the world where the Irish Diaspora have settled. At the United
Nations, it has a good international record of underwriting the rights of minorities and
marginalised peoples internationally. Since the passing of the Belfast Agreement of
1998, both parts of the island of Ireland have developed some of the most advanced
institutions in the world to promote equality, social justice and human rights. Ireland
is a country of interest in terms of new thinking about equality and human rights.
University College Dublin, as the largest and most dynamic university in Ireland in
relation to teaching and researching in the equality, social justice and human rights
fields is ideally located to be a key player in developing such an idea. University
College Dublin is the only university in Ireland to have a range of new departments in
the 1990s focused on equality and human rights-related issues, notably Equality
Studies, Development Studies, Disability Studies and Women’s Studies. It also
established an Institute of Criminology in the Law Faculty. The Equality Studies
Centre alone is recognised internationally as playing a key role in ‘reinvigorating
egalitarianism’ world wide (Professor Madeleine Arnot, Cambridge, 2004, review
comments on the ESC’s most recent publication, Equality: From Theory to Action). In
addition, UCD has a very strong track record in the Politics, Sociology and Social
Policy fields of undertaking research and policy initiatives with civil society
institutions. The Agriculture Faculty is a lead player in the humanitarian aid field,
while Departments as diverse as Public Health, Industrial Relations and Engineering
have contributed in very different ways to thinking about how to promote a more
inclusive and fair society from within their own traditions. There are other leading
scholars in UCD in cognate fields whose work is not, as yet, known to us.
Maintaining Public Trust
Not only does UCD have the capacity to develop an initiative in the social justice
field, it also needs to develop such an initiative in the interests of meeting its current
strategic commitments to equality and social inclusion. There is a serious threat to
public trust in Irish universities arising from HEA evidence collected over the last 20
years indicating that UCD and other major universities cater largely for the socioeconomic elite of Irish society. The failure of UCD to be a socially inclusive
university has a high price: in the long term it will erode public trust in its universal
purposes. Loss of public trust in universities will undermine public commitment to
funding them, not only in the short term, but also in the long term. If public trust is
lost, it will not return easily, nor will the funding associated with it. To lose public
trust is to renege on our duties as a public university.
How can we be sure that we can retain public trust in our University, and perhaps
regain it where it may be lost? The answer to this is we believe in the development of
a strong profile for the University in fields of research, teaching and community
service that is informed by an ethically grounded view of UCD as a global university.
We live in an age of increasing moral bankruptcy, where the gap between the poorest
and the richest is growing greater and wider, not only within our own country, but
also between rich and poor countries, and within poor countries themselves, (UNDP,
2004.) UCD cannot afford to stand silently by, merely being an intellectual spectator
in the face of globalisation; it can shape the form of globalisation, developing a new
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and inclusive vision not only for itself but also for the global order. By establishing a
programme of work, driven by a sincere belief in social justice, equality and human
rights, UCD can show to the world the benefits of uniting empirical and normative
modes of research inquiry across disciplines to shape a new vision for our global
society.
References
Baker, John, Lynch, Kathleen, Cantillon, Sara and Walsh, Judy (2004) Equality:
From Theory to Action. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Blumenthal, David (2002) “Biotech in North East Ontario Conference: Conflicts of
Interest in Biomedical research”. Health Matrix, 12: 380. (Cited in Lieberwitz.
2004)
Eisenberg, Rebecca S. (1987) ‘Propriety Rights and the Norms of Science in
Biotechnology Research”, Yale Law Journal, Vol. 97: 181-184.
Lieberwitz, Risa L. (2004) ‘”University Science Research Funding: Privatizing Policy
and Practice”, in Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Paula E. Stephan (eds.) Science
and the University. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Monbiot, George (2000) Captive State. London: Macmillan.
Nussbaum, Martha C. (1997) Cultivating Humanity: a classical defence of reform in
liberal education. Cambridge MA and London, Harvard University Press.
UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2004) Human Development
Report 2003: New York: Oxford University Press
World Social Forum (2002) Official Statistics for the World Social Forum 2002.
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br (18 May 2003).
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