This is a CTP of initiative: Living Knowledge ‐ The Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG ‐ Hungary)
The core of this CTP is the establishment of a community service and volunteering centre at the agricultural university in Hungary and the cultural centre in the local city around 2004.
The community service and volunteering centre at the agricultural university in Hungary and the cultural centre in the local city was the first formal science shop activity carried out in Hungary. This CTP is a long process of different events and development, as detailed under related events. It especially relates to mentoring through a US funded project that introduced GP and his colleagues, among them BB, to the idea of service learning and community based research. This was followed by a visit from an American professors, funded by a Fulbright Scholarship, who further mentored them on engaging and doing fieldwork in local communities.
This process led to the decision to start a science shop at their university. The applied for national grant that they received, funding them for 2 years. At this time, they were not really involved with the Living Knowledge network, so it was not called a science shop or related to the network. On a side note, the name science shop is in praxis seldom used by the various initiatives even if they are members of Living Knowledge, except the Danish, Dutch and Germany science shops (science shop in their national language, not the English name). Science shops from other countries use other names depending on national language and local contexts.
This new Hungarian initiative constituted the activities and ideology that are usually identified as a science shop, although unaffiliated with the international network. The affiliation first came during the CTP when ERSSG was established.
There was a range of very important actors involved in the events leading up to the establishment of the science shop at the agricultural university. Chief among them were the mentors from the US. First through the project for young promising lecturers in Hungary funded by the US, where especially GP were taught about service learning.
Secondly, Winni Wright from the state university in Michigan who mentored GP and his colleagues on service learning, fieldwork, and other relevant competences for running a science shop. It is important to note, that these actors that influence GP and his colleagues were unrelated to the science shop movement and Living Knowledge, it just happened to influence them in the direction of creating a science shop type initiative.
The context at the time, the availability of funding, of course also had an impact. Eastern Europe at this time had funding opportunities from the US, trying to bring a society perspective or social issues into research and teaching.
GP: previously Hungary enjoyed a situation, especially after the regime changed in the early nineties, or middle nineties at least, there where big US and other foundations who were trying to finance civil society and strengthen civil society. So they put a lot of money into this kind of bottom up initiatives…
The Hungarian situation also had an impact. In Hungary at this time volunteering work was uncommon as well as participatory research, service learning, community based research etc. This might be part of the reason that the group received a generous grant for starting their initiative, and that the US funded mentoring in such activities.
There was a range of events leading to the establishment of this science shop type initiative. One of them was how one of the main actors in the establishment came into the area of community service, as he describes it:
GP: It started as an individual story… opening up to the idea of community service and then we established this centre at the university, and the local city cultural centre as well, so that was a nice 2 years
GP later details this individual story:
He (BB, the other interviewee) linked our research group with the living knowledge network but first we were confronted, or I was confronted let’s say, with the whole idea. I was not aware that there is a living knowledge network, but I was involved as a fellow in an initiative financed by the US, I think through government sources in Hungary, it was called the civil education project, and this project was around to involve a few number of the young or early career lectors and instructors, university based lectures who were teaching, and they wanted to kind of improve their pedagogy way of teaching. This civil education project as the name is already hinting at, reflect, was trying to bring in a society perspective, so how you can teach in a way which is connected to real life, social issues, associated issues, in terms of pedagogy service learning. So service learning is a pedagogic approach which I learned there. That was a kind of critical turning point for me, because it opened my eyes up to the possibility that I can reorganize my classes, my courses, in a way were students are doing something related to the substance of the course, but which is serving a particular problem to be solved for a particular local community of group of citizens. So this was around, I think a bit after 2000.
GP involved BB and the other colleagues of the research group in these activities, spreading the knowledge and idea of service learning and community based research. This is probably the most crucial preceding event, as GP likely would not have taken his career and activities in the direction of science shop work without this mentoring.
Another event was the collaboration with an American colleague, Winni Wright from Michigan state university (at this time at least), who were funded by a Fulbright Scholarship:
GP: her job is one part teaching, one part research, one part community engagement, and then we learned about this issue that it is possible to get it acknowledged by the university… the professor is doing community engagement. She was also giving us a lot of information… what does it mean… how to work with local communities… so we learned a lot from her… the US experience on community based research and community outreach… and she was also, we brought her in to our fieldwork as well, and we still have a good contact… so we learned from that as well… so this was a kind of learning and opening up to the whole idea in that phase… and then we decided that we enjoyed it so much that we should establish a science shop…
This led directly to the idea of a science shop, as mentioned by GP. This type of volunteer work was not widespread in Hungary at the time (early 00’s), but they thought to bring in some students who did not want to do this kind of work through courses, but would do it in their spare time. So they tried to find funding for their idea:
GP: so we applied for the special project grant (a national grant) to establish a community service and volunteering centre at the agriculture university, and we were successful and gained this quite huge money compared to the Hungarian situation.
Initially it seems there were no contestation. They received the money from a national grant, so it was external to the university, so there was no contestation from inside the university. The contestation mostly happened during the end of the 2 year project that the national grant financed them for, as explained by GP:
We did hope that during these 2 years we will be able to convince the university leaders, managers, that this is nice and so important and so successful and it brings such good reputation to the university, and they will kind of take over after the projects ends and finance it. And also we expected that the local government will do the same with the cultural centre unit, but we failed though we were personally discussing with the rector. We invited the local government and also discussed so we could raise some profile, but not enough to gain university or local government financing after the project life, so we had to close down the unit and kind of say that okay, this idea within the university and local government it failed, or there is no need for these actors to support this kind of initiative. They were happy if we can gain the finance (externally) then they would support it, so we are absolutely independent and stand alone, but if we are independent and we have to raise the finance alone then we were thinking, why do establish it at the university?
The ending question leads directly to the CTP on establishing ESSRG. This quote also illustrates the problem, which on a side note has been observed often in the Living Knowledge network. There is no active contestation, just a lack of interest, and indifference. Their colleagues at the agricultural university did not support them, they did not actively oppose them, they just did not want to do that kind of work themselves. And the university management, although happy about the initiative as long as it financed itself, did not have enough interest to provide funding.
The groups who directly work in or benefit from the work, the students and local civil society, are here not part of the decision to finance or not to finance the initiative.
There was initially little anticipation of this CTP, until GP participated in the US project on mentoring young lecturers in Hungary, and the visit of Winni Wright. The interview do not specify how much they anticipated getting the grant they applied for to start the initiative before it happened. They however clearly did not expect the lack of interest in continuing the initiative after the grant ran out, and seemed surprised that their colleagues and the management lacked interest.
In relation to the education and mentoring from the US project and Winni Wright, GP clearly did not see the full significance for his career, but he clearly saw it as a personal CTP for him.
This question is not something the interviewee’s had really considered, and the learning are drawn out analytically from the interview.
One of the most prevalent learnings are about university politics. When their science shop at the agricultural university failed to get any funding, they started questioning why it should be run at the university, if they had to finance it themselves by finding external funding. They started considering going independent, which is the next CTP that entails how ESSRG was established. Forming and independent company shielded them from political fights and funding issues at the university (funding is still a challenge).
Their change ambitions were, among others, to transform the Hungarian university, which failed. None of their colleagues at the time or the university management gained any interest, or enough interest, in the initiative. This might be related to the specific university, the biggest agricultural university un Hungary at the time, as GP later had much larger success at another university (Corvinus University, see later CTP). It might also be related to the timing and the societal context at the time.
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