University-community-industry partnerships are often developed with promise of creating social transformation. However, the development of these partnerships occurs within a broader socio-political and historical context that has the potential to counteract these goals; unknowingly moving deeper into a dominant neoliberal ideology – which are sometimes hidden in international assistance and development projects. These contextually embedded, institutionally ground processes that ‘manage’ partnerships in line with neoliberal imperatives ultimately serve to further maintain the status quo and the non-profit industrial complex. Within this context, neoliberalism is both a market-based ideology that regards products and activities of university partnerships primarily as commodities. To develop ethical and deliberative partnerships that truly meet the transformational needs of communities we care about, our assumptions must be examined.

In this roundtable we propose to unpack dynamics of power that are produced at the borders of university-community partnerships seeking liberation and well-being. We will share about our ‘impactful’ partnerships within our unique contexts in the USA, Australia, and Indonesia. We will describe the range of processes produced through our partnerships, how we understand success, and critically examine epistemological approaches, methodologies and praxis generated through the work. Some guiding questions for the discussion will be:

What kinds of praxis have succeeded in building new or different knowledges with organisations? Have those knowledges been sustained? How?

What basic assumptions or epistemological worldviews are embedded in the partnerships?

How are we positioning the curricula, faculty, and student body within the partnerships? Are they viewed within an ideology where there is an implicit dominant culture?

In what ways do these examples demonstrate working as a university to dismantle the structures of capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy?

What recommendations from these example partnerships can we identify to more deliberately transform the ideological landscape to shift our system to be more life-focused rather than profit-focused?