5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The notion of the university as a ‘public’ actor, or the ‘public’ role of the university has come under increasing scrutiny from within and without the university. Critiques have highlighted the university’s aloofness from urgent and conflictual realities, or questioned the impact of market intrusion, resources scarcity or political interference on universities’ ability to play its ‘public’ role. Others still have highlighted the persistent legacies of colonial, modernist and sectorial structures of academia as major stumbling blocks in delivering on its mission statements. How then can we rethink or reimagine the ‘public’ role of the university – through, and in, urban studies specifically – to ensure its societal relevance? How can we bolster universities’ role as progressive urban actors, ‘fit for purpose’ in shaping more socio-environmentally just and caring urban development trajectories?

Through this panel, we invite papers that engage with the potential of doing urban research, teaching and public engagement differently, pioneered by already-existing, emerging, and proposed experimentations in different geographies, not only within universities but also within higher education and knowledge institutions more broadly. This panel seeks to collect and reflect on such innovations, their contextualised understandings of the public role/ ‘publicness’ of universities and, critically, reflecting on how such innovations can be scaled up or indeed routinised. In doing so, we aim also to support an emerging community of practice of urban scholars that are keen to activate levers of change in their universities, as well as through networked practices.