Coordination: José António Moreira

Presentation

The Multimedia Laboratory for Local Studies (LabELO) research line at the Centre for Global Studies (CEG) should function as a support structure for the development of all of CEG’s research groups and lines of research established at Universidade Aberta (UAb).
The LabELO Research Line, in close articulation with CEG’s different groups and research lines, will seek to locally identify objects of study and of preferential intervention in the territorial areas where the network of Universidade Aberta’s Local Learning Centres (CLA) is integrated. This aims at transforming scientific knowledge into a matter that may contribute to promote the territories’ competitiveness and development. This network of UAb’s CLAs, composed of eighteen centres, within the scope of its mission of social and academic responsibility, is a decentralized structure that works for the populations’ social and territorial development, ensuring them a greater access to higher education and reinforcing the UAb’s scientific research and knowledge dissemination capacity, articulated with other public and private institutions.
This focus will enable us to instil new dynamics that will contribute, on the one hand, to the consolidation of communication between the different CLAs at the UAb and local partners, through stimulating academic and socio-cultural actions and, on the other hand, to the development of scientific activities through participation in research projects.

Background

The Mobile Research Unit in Local Studies, now named LabELO, was created as a mobile research unit within the scope of the Research Coordinating Institute, in the meantime extinct due to the change in the statutes (Normative Order no. 11/2015, published in the Portuguese Official Gazette, Series II – No. 122 – 25th June 2015), to accomplish one of the UMCLA’s attributions, according to the Rector’s Orders 400/R/2009 and 53/R/2012, specifically to promote the development of research projects in priority areas of the CLAs. The reconversion of ELO may create important synergies for the development of the CEG, since it may contribute to the development of scientific research and local development, by carrying out collective or individual research-action projects in partnership with local institutions and social actors.

Goals and mission

The LabELO Research Line, as a support structure of the CEG, aims to contribute to its goals, having the specific one of creating scientific and technological cooperation networks between researchers, universities, research centres and enterprises.

Its objectives also encompass:

• providing spaces for dialogue and development of projects between researchers from different scientific areas;
• supporting advanced higher education;
• promoting the publishing, edition and dissemination of scientific works, as well as the production of audio-visual content for the digital media.

The LabELO Research Line will have as its main missions:

• To support the production, dissemination and promotion of research;
• To support the articulation between research, training and service provision;
• To promote or integrate research projects focused on the specificities of the communities where the CLAs are located;
• To articulate with the Local Learning Centres Development Unit (UMCLA) through the promotion of cultural, scientific and academic initiatives carried out in collaboration with local and regional, national and international, public and private entities.