About Generational Change in Academia and How to Maintain and Renew the Dialogue and Meaningful Practical Work between a Research Centre and Deprived Neighbourhoods.

For over two decades, the Research Centre Polis (CRPOLIS) has been applying participatory action research and defending the interests of the neighbourhood movement in the Besòs Axis, one of the most vulnerable areas of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona. By integrating into community networks as a relevant actor, it has maintained collaborative frameworks that have led to tangible projects of Community Development and Participative Urban Design. CRPOLIS was consolidated by bringing together the interests of professors from different departments and faculties of the University of Barcelona (Fine Arts, Social Psychology, Sociology) through their participation in a master's programme in urban studies. The practice in the neighbourhoods has consisted of facilitating participatory community processes and transferring strategic capacities to the communities to foster the effective exercise of the Right to the City. Meanwhile, the work in the Master's programme embodied the practice of learning and applied reflection on interventions in public space. However, a generational shift is rethinking this trajectory of research and teaching. The change in academic leadership, coupled with the dissolution of the programme that brought its members together, raises questions about how to ensure the continuity of the previous successful trajectory. The reopening of the spatial focus of the Centre towards the surrounding areas of the Besòs Axis, the introduction of new thematic lines by the new members of the Research Centre and the coordination with other postgraduate programmes are proposed as the main lines for the future to maintain this trajectory of participatory construction of knowledge with social relevance. In this sense, the proposed communication aims to present a reflection on the academic practice of the Research Centre and, by extension, a reflection on Sociological Practice itself as a tool for socio-territorial transformation.