The Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, will be running an IM4DC-commissioned ‘Transferring Knowledge Workshop’ in Peru in late May, in collaboration with University of San Marcos (UNSM).
The workshop will focus on leading practices to obtain social consensus in the extractive sector.
In recent years, Peru has seen several mining projects affected by social conflicts that resulted from failure to achieve a social license to operate, resulting in delays, suspensions or abandonment of the project. This is usually the result of not having reached an agreement with nearby communities.
The workshop will utilise a ‘train the trainer approach’. The UNMSM teachers will shadow the project team in the workshop so, in the future, they can deliver short courses in mining affected provinces and train a number of university staff in those regions so workshops can continue regularly, led by the regional university staff.
The workshop itself is a novel format for IM4DC courses, with significant multimedia engagement. Each topic covered in the workshop will involve a UQ academic and one or more Peruvian experts and UNMSM academics.
UQ academics will be providing content and materials and are recording their sessions as high-quality video presentations to be played at the workshop. This enables a greater level of expert involvement from UQ staff by limiting the funding required for each academic’s participation.
The project will also provide expertise and materials to assist UNMSM to develop a syllabus and readings for a Master’s degree program. The implementation of the workshop will help to determine the effectiveness of the documents and teaching methodology.