Good practices of cooperation between universities and local community

This paper will identify areas of application of good practices which emerged from international and interdisciplinary research  on social suffering in urban spaces and on change agentry with intercultural sensitivity, which is at the basis of a new concept of co-operation for local development. Three examples of possible good practices are described such as: 1) The Pilot action-research project on community health and quality of the life in Managua’s Barrio Carlos Fonseca, an urban place of social suffering; 2) The relationship of University of Sancti Spiritus with the local Cuban community; 3) The  research-action on the rights of citizen that the University of Milano-Bicocca, together with the Foundation Casa della Carità, is conducting in some districts in Milan. Six themes of research: under age foreigners not accompanied, migrant people, health and services, social marginality, prisons, house. In the relationship university-local community it is very important the role of the University as a development agent in society, interacting with citizens and institutions, which is strengthened by research activity, interaction, sensitization, education, training and capacity building, professional apprenticeship and participatory field projects. It is important to emphasize how universities progressively rising number of tasks makes them increasingly important as agents for local development. Therefore the university is measured not only on the basis of quality of knowledge and human capital, but also on the level of embedded social capital within a certain region. Value is added in those contexts where suitable skills resulting from constant investment in university education and professional qualification are useful. Universities should increasingly become the in which people can come together, ask questions, make demands and offer experiences. These social and professional practices pass through the university arena and return to their origins enriched by the exchange of new perspectives.