Hindering Aspects of the Spreading of University Community Engagement (UCE) – UCE as an Incompatible Approach With International Academic Capitalism?

Abstract

Universities face widespread social and political expectations nowadays to prove their social usefulness. A potential approach to meet this requirement is university community engagement (UCE). Still, UCE as an academic practice, if present at all, is still at an early, peripheral phase and usually carried out by single individuals or small academic groups on a predominantly voluntary basis (without being financially subsidized/part of performance evaluation systems) at most universities. Thus, despite the even stronger social and political pressures UCE is still not a widespread academic activity. In the present research, those factors that contribute to this seemingly controversial situation are examined, based on qualitative empirical research that was carried out in Hungary.