POST Workshop II Madrid: Partnerships in Practice

On March 9 – 10, 2023, some members of the International Doctorate Programme “Business and
Human Rights: Governance Challenges in a Complex World (IDP) traveled to Madrid to attend
and co-organize the workshop on “Partnerships in Practice” as part of the “Partnerships
Orchestrating Sustainability Transformations (POST) project. POST is a collaboration initiative
between FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS), and Universidad
Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), funded by EELISA European University. The POST agenda
supports the UN SDG 17 on Partnerships for Goals and aims to understand cross-sector
partnerships for sustainability transformations through exploring its meaning, dimensions,
context, and nature in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa through interdisciplinary
research, exchange, and collaboration. POST was an initiative of the representatives from the
IDP at FAU: Chau Bui, Loren Bustos, Kania Guzaimi, Shuvra Dey, Supriya Singh, and Xu
Kang.

After successfully conducting the first POST workshop on “Partnerships for Sustainable
Development: Searching for Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives” last January 2023
hosted by SNS in Florence, the Madrid workshop hosted by ItdUPM was conceptualized to
further support and build upon the fundamental understandings of Partnership by adopting a
practical and context-sensitive approach. Day 1 kick-started with a meeting with the EELISA
Executive Director, Sofia d’ Aguiar. In the afternoon, the hybrid session on “Partnerships in
context: an approach to transformation” opened an important discussion on Partnership with
guest speakers Dr. Leda Stott (European Commission), Prof. Markus Krajewski (FAU), and
Prof. Markus Beckmann (FAU). This is then followed by a workshop on “Partnership’s
lifecycle” facilitated by partnership experts, Leda Stott and Javier Mazorra. The workshop was
devoted to unfolding the concept of “Partnership’s lifecycle,” a well-known framework in the
frontier between practice and academia. On Day 2, the session opened with a roundtable on
“Partnerships between theory and practice” and invited a panel with diverse and interesting case
studies. The aim of this roundtable was to reach out, exchange experiences around a selection of
real cases, and enlarge our academic network. Two doctoral researchers from the IDP were also
part of that dynamic panel; Bruna Singh presented on the topic titled “Multi Stakeholder
Partnerships: A Valuable Tool for Enhancing Leverage in Business and Human Rights,” and
Nelson Okeyo presented on “ICT Partnerships in Africa, Legitimacy and The Way Forward.”