What do we do?
COURSE PROJECTS
The vast majority of community questions receivedby CSS find their way into course projects. These aregroup tasks embedded in a university course, duringwhich students explore the question in collaborationwith the lecturer and the community partner andusually ending up by providing a (business) solutionto a practical problem.Students typically work in teams of 3 to 6, utilisingboth secondary (literature and existing research-based) and primary (focus group, interview,questionnaire etc.) research methodologies, relyingon their knowledge of business administration andthe topics covered in the given course.
If a course project succeeds in aligning educationalgoals and the needs of the community partner, theinternational practice of community engaged teachingand learning comes to life. It is this aspect thatwe currently consider to be one of Corvinus ScienceShop’s key priorities.
Courses/topics where community engaged teachingand learning have been implemented to date.
Previous course projects
Soon to be uploaded
THESIS WORK AND STUDENTRESEARCH
Research questions of communities are channelledinto a theoretically explored, individual or pair-basedresearch implemented over a longer period of time.Further to the thesis work, Corvinus is also engagedin student research via the Student Scientific Conference.In both cases, students work in collaborationwith the community partners under the guidance oftheir supervisors.Community partners not only provide great thesisquestions, but also offer significant advantages. Whilea student often encounters limited access to corporatedata and faces a compulsory confidentiality agreement,community partners are usually happy to sharetheir accumulated knowledge, information and data,and, more to the point, they are ready to implementthe findings.
CSS operates an online thesis question database andexperiments with the organisation of thesis fairs forMaster programmes. It provides a framework for theformulation of the research question and the researchprocess to support collaboration among partners.
Thesis question database
Soon to be uploaded
RESEARCH
One of CSS’s goals for the near future is research withcommunity partners. We have been piloting participatoryresearch, applying for grants, and planninga study for community partners at Corvinus’s newcampus.
CSS research is, however, already ongoing. Membersof the CSS Team employ scientific research methodologiesto study science shop dynamics and operationsand to share their findings – both locally andinternationally – through academic publicationsand conferences.
Research findings also serve to improve Science Shopprocesses and stakeholder interactions and are channelledinto social impact measurement of CSS and itsprojects.
Publications
CSS Team members serve various roles. They are foundersof Corvinus Science Shop thus they have been actively shapingthis organisation from early on. They are organisers andfacilitators of the workshops of CSS for mutual learning –and their collegial experiences as lecturers and researchers ofCorvinus are organically integrated to these roles. As researchersthey have been exploring internal processes and dynamicsof CSS, the interrelations and collaborations of variouspartners and stakeholders to provide feedback as well as improvescience shop processes, contents and relationships. Thesefindings are shared not only with the lecturers, studentsand community partners of CSS but also academic audiences:via papers, conference presentations and publication inHungary and abroad. Please find our local and internationalacademic and media presence as well as Hungarian conferencesand workshops we jointly organised with academicpartners in this chapter.
Andrea Toarniczky, Réka Matolay, JuditGáspár:Responsive Higher Education throughTransformational Practices – The Caseof a Hungarian Business School
Futures, 111: 181-193, 2019
This collective case study reports on transformational learning processes at a leading business school in Hungary. It reflects on the disorienting dilemmas/assumptions shaping the dynamic relationship among students, faculty and the institution. The three steps of the case study reveal how transformational learning in higher education might be supported at various levels, such as the levels of the individual educator; the community of educators; and the structure as such. Our article is one of the outcomes of a bottom-up faculty development process building on Responsible Research and Innovation. The case presents practical limitations of the theoretical process of transformational learning, and through the understanding of these limitations gives new insights into the nature of the process itself.
MUTUALLEARNING
CSS develops and runs workshops for lecturers andcommunity partners to strengthen co-operations.We provide tools and exercises for improving courseprojects, as well as, collect feedback from all stakeholdergroups.
We also offer workshops to higher education institutionsin the region, keeping in mind the local characteristicsof setting-up and operating science shops.
These workshops are designed in line with the ideaand philosophy of science shops: interaction and participation,mutual learning and co-creation are centralto these events.
CIRCLET
Curriculum Innovation Through Research with Communities: Learning Circles of Educators and Technology
Community engaged research and learning (CERL)are promoted in the Erasmus+ projects by two essentialelements:
- integration of online technologies
- learning circles of lecturers locally and internationally,where peer learning as well as learningfrom experts and stakeholders are aimed for.
We started the project in the 2019-2020 academic year.The need assessment and grant application processtook place in the 2018-2019 academic year though.