The DECODE Knowledge Project
Co-construction, Decolonisation & Transformation
Producing Actionable Knowledge for the Challenges of Our Times
About the Project
The DECODE is a project led by the UNESCO Chair for Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education and funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Our world today encounters pressing challenges like climate crises and persistent inequalities. To advance and address the complexities faced by humanity, new knowledge is imperative. However, a crucial question arises: What knowledge? Whose knowledge? Are there new understandings of knowledge? What about previously ignored or rejected systems of knowledge?
In response, the DECODE project takes centre stage, with its primary goal to enhance the potential of locally contextualized actionable knowledge to address challenges identified by communities. Framed within a gender and decolonial lens, the project is built on theoretical understandings led by Tandon and Hall on knowledge democracy and recognition of community knowledge cultures.
Through a collaborative process of peer learning, collective reflections, and systematization, the project brings together the co-chairs of the UNESCO Chair in CBRSR and the Knowledge for Change Consortium. This collaboration extends to global networks of community, academically trained professionals, and Indigenous-led research practitioners, enriching our understanding of the principles, policy implications, and supportive infrastructures necessary for advancing community and Indigenous-led knowledge movements.
In this journey, we explore, learn, and contribute to the advancement of community and Indigenous-led knowledge movements worldwide. Together, we can shape a future where knowledge catalyses positive change.
About Us
Drs. Rajesh Tandon and Budd Hall have been part of the critique of dominant approaches to knowledge production since the mid-1970s. They founded participatory research movement in the late 1970s, which grew from knowledge activists in the Global South into a worldwide discourse. They have led the critical movement that calls for community-based structures, movements, and organisations to take the lead in knowledge production to create locally actionable knowledge to address concerns at a local level. Between the two of them, they have published more than 200 articles and various books on the subject.
The UNESCO Chair supports North-South-South and South-South partnerships that build on and enhance the emerging consensus in knowledge democracy. It strengthens recent collaboration between the Higher Education section in UNESCO, the Global University Network for Innovation (GUNI), the Global Alliance on Community University Engagement and other regional and global networks. It co-creates new knowledge through partnerships among universities (academics), communities (civil society) and government (policy makers), leading to new capacities, new solutions to pressing problems related to sustainability, social and economic disparities, cultural exclusion, mistrust and conflict; and awareness among policymakers; enhanced scholarship of engagement; and social responsibility in Higher Education.
