Negotiation Sustainability

Centre of Expertise Global and Inclusive Learning

Negotiation Sustainability

This project, partially funded by a Comenius Teaching Fellowship, explores the pedagogy of advocacy & conflict management (ACM) skills, particularly in the context of: 

  • day-to-day ACM experiences of senior THUAS LAW undergraduates/young professionals as they transition to the workplace
  • the sustainable development goals (as a proxy for important societal issues). 

We focus on whether accessibility to ACM education could be improved through competition-based learning (CbL) in the framework of a new (inter)national competition (working title, The Hague Negotiation Round or HNR) for students/young professionals.   Think of The Warsaw Negotiation Round or Telders with 4 main differences: 

  1. Focus on education instead of competition – one could imagine HNR as more of a MOOC (large group distance learning) wrapped in a competition format, rather than a pure competition. 
  2. Accessibility – instead of being limited to a relatively small group of motivated students/professionals as is the case with existing competitions, we want to create a platform which could be accessed by a relatively large number of potential participants (again, MOOC is a reasonably good mental model).
  3. Platform for collaboration – our vision is that The Hague Negotiation Round will stimulate vertical collaboration (between students, higher education institutions and the workplace) and horizontal collaboration (between higher education institutions). 
  4. Relevant content – taking the lead from training transfer literature, the role-play scenarios and related education in The Hague Negotiation Round would cover content more relevant to young professionals.  Less of a “Model UN” or “COP X” and more of the daily opportunities and challenges of professional life.

The main outputs of the project will be: 

  • (quasi) experimental research on how student performance in assessments compares in CbL vs “traditional” workshop formats; and in focused ACM/SDG vs more general content 
  •  development of a library of ACM/SDG scenarios and related education to be shared/made in collaboration with students, other HE institutions and the work place
  • establishment of a competition both within THUAS and HNR (inter)nationally to deliver ACM/SDG education

This project is lead by researcher Paul Vine

For more information you can contact Paul Vine at P.L.Vine@hhs.nl