Good practices of interdisciplinary international cooperation between universities and local development on social suffering in urban spaces

This article describes 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 illustrated: 1) Pilot action-research project by UNAN of Managua on community health and quality of the life in Managua’s Barrio Carlos Fonseca, a urban place of social suffering; 2) the relationship of University of Sancti Spiritus with the local Cuban community; 3) the action-research on the rights of citizen that the University of Milano-Bicocca, together with the Foundation Casa della Carità (local NGO), is conducting in some districts in Milan. It is important to emphasize how universities progressively rising number of tasks makes them increasingly important as agents for local development. Therefore the university should be 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. Universities should increasingly become the nexus 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. Ideas coming from places of action and from dynamic collectivities outside, stimulate the inside through continuous co-mingling.