The Policy Brief Intercultural University of the Peoples: Weaving Knowledges for Sustainable and Just Lives

The Policy Brief Intercultural University of the Peoples: Weaving Knowledges for Sustainable and Just Lives has just been published!

Authored by Fátima Alves from the Societies and Environmental Sustainability Research Group at the Centre for Functional Ecology – Science for People & the Planet, Associate Laboratory TERRA, University of Coimbra, and its extension at Universidade Aberta, Portugal.

This work results from her postdoctoral research conducted at ENSP/FIOCRUZ within the scope of the CAPES-PRINT Programme.

The document is grounded in a participatory and intercultural process developed with Indigenous peoples and traditional communities across two territories:

• Brazil: Serra da Bocaina National Park and Serra do Mar, in collaboration with the Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Territories (OTSS/FIOCRUZ);
• Portugal: Serra da Gata and Serra da Malcata, based in Vilar Maior.

This initiative is expected to expand to other national and international contexts.

Rooted in plural epistemologies and inspired by the cosmologies of Buen Vivir and collective health, the Intercultural University of the Peoples (UIP) proposes:

• Co-producing knowledge with communities and territories in response to health and environmental inequalities;
• Democratising Indigenous, traditional, and local knowledges within higher education;
• Valuing nature as a subject of care, reciprocity, and belonging.

The Policy Brief identifies key challenges for this transformation:

• Barriers to the inclusion of non-hegemonic knowledges in academia and public policy;
• Lack of formal recognition of local knowledge systems;
• Underrepresentation of communities in decisions affecting their ways of life.

In response, it presents concrete policy recommendations:

• Governmental support for UIP as a model of intercultural education;
• Inclusive legislation to protect sociobiodiversity and the rights of nature;
• Investment in educational innovation;
• Strong international partnerships;
• Formal recognition of traditional and local knowledges in research and sustainable development agendas.

Access the full document via the link below and join the conversation about a more inclusive and resilient future.