Learning alliance

A learning alliance is a diverse network of individuals committed to improving knowledge on a specific research topic. Learning alliances are often made up of small networks of public, private and/or civil society actors seeking to further social or political change.

Learning alliances consist of a series of facilitated meetings or informal exchanges between stakeholders with a common advocacy interest. Individual actors or groups share knowledge on a topic in order to improve the validity, accuracy and dissemination of their analysis.

Learning Alliances in the humanitarian sector often place importance on improving the capacity of disadvantaged social groups to solve problems on their own behalf. The learning alliance concept has ties to the field of Participatory Action Research, or PAR, an approach to social research that emphasizes participation and action by community members.

In humanitarian, development and social research fields, the term Learning Alliance has been used by international aid groups to describe cross-boundary stakeholder networks focused on improving local civil society capacity.

The Learning Alliance approach was first discussed in literature in 1994 investigating what Michael Gibbons called mode two knowledge production. Mode two knowledge production involves multidisciplinary teams that work together on specific problems in the real world, in contrast to mode one knowledge production, “which is motivated by scientific knowledge alone... and which is not bothered by the applicability of its findings”.Gibbons noted that this type of research “promotes the interaction of multiple actors with multi-layered sources of knowledge to cope with the complexity of fostering continuous technological, social and institutional innovations to respond to rapidly changing contexts and demands”.

In 2012 the United Nations Barrier Monitoring Unit (BMU) launched a formal Learning Alliance called the Academic Cooperation Palestine Project (ACPP) to enhance the educational and technical capacity of Palestinian researchers. ACPP hosted local and international research partnerships around sensitive issues related to the Israeli Separation Wall, including land degradation, water rights and land title controls. ACPP is now called the WALL Learning Alliance.

In the United States, the Digital Learning Alliance group formed to “improve economic growth in underserved areas of the U.S. by advocating for personalized education through the use of digital learning technologies”.

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