Outside the ivory tower: the role and the impacts of service-learning in urban studies education, research and university third mission

In recent years, the social role of universities has been increasingly discussed. This is not only at the core of a significant part of the so-called university third mission, but it is also central to many research methodologies claiming that academia has to ‘give something back’ to communities. Moreover, bringing universities closer to communities is also paramount to prepare graduates with the uncertainties and the complexities of the contemporary scenario and develop their ethical responsibility and professional identity. This is even more important for academic institutions involved in education and research in the field of spatial planning, as the confrontation with the ‘real world’ and its challenges is imperative. This research intends to investigate service-learning as a promising methodological and theoretical teaching approach in planning. As some authors have acknowledged, research and teaching are often seen as two separate parts of the academic dimension, whereas service-learning allows these two dimensions to be united (Colbeck, 1998; Pain, 2009; Grabbatin and Fickey, 2012). Furthermore, it connects teaching with research and action by crossing university-community boundaries (Butin, 2010). The case study used to investigate the role and impacts of service-learning in responding simultaneously to an improvement in academia’s teaching, research, and social action is that of the AuroraLAB project in Turin (Italy), which the authors of the paper follow at first hand since its start in 2018. It is an action-research project focused on urban regeneration in the Aurora neighbourhood, a vulnerable area filled with latent resources. In doing so, AuroraLAB involves several students and researchers from the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning of the Politecnico di Torino and the University of Turin in a joint effort to do research and teaching outside the traditional 'ivory tower' of academia.