This paper interrogates the literature on the role of universities in society, with a specific focus on university-community partnerships, and discusses the experience of the Philippi CityLab in Cape Town, South Africa to shed some light on the complexities, challenges and rewards of university-community interactions. The case of the Philippi lab confirms many of the pre-requisites for “successful” collaboration between universities as identified in the literature. This case also shows that stakeholders should not be naïve about the time, effort, and investment which these kinds of engagements require, and the difficulty of establishing and sustaining mutually beneficial university-community collaborations.

Brown-Luthango, M. (2013). Community-university engagement: the Philippi CityLab in Cape Town and the challenge of collaboration across boundaries. Higher Education, 65(3), 309-324. Full Text.