{"id":41161,"date":"2016-09-20T14:53:35","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T18:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=41161"},"modified":"2016-09-20T14:53:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T18:53:35","slug":"charles-conteh-named-director-of-brocks-niagara-community-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2016\/09\/charles-conteh-named-director-of-brocks-niagara-community-observatory\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Conteh named director of Brock\u2019s Niagara Community Observatory"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The new director of Brock University\u2019s Niagara Community Observatory has a simple message to residents of Niagara and beyond: we\u2019re listening.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re developing a discipline of paying very careful attention to what our community is saying: to understand, feel the pulse of where they are, and then leverage the expertise to respond to them,\u201d says Charles Conteh, associate professor in Brock\u2019s Department of Political Science.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to create platforms of conversation that we can translate into research questions and then provide evidence to inform action and policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Niagara Community Observatory (NCO) is a research unit at Brock that produces policy briefs and activities<\/a> that address a wide range of issues on current and emerging trends at the regional, provincial and national levels.<\/p>\n

Topics covered in past research briefs include: the presence and impacts of poverty in Niagara; representation on municipal councils in Ontario; barriers to post-secondary education in the Region; and the most recent, \u201cDowntown revitalization in St. Catharines: Building the public space<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

High on Conteh\u2019s agenda is to continue building partnerships with organizations, agencies, groups and others in the community and surrounding areas as a way of tapping into peoples\u2019 questions and concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can then see how we will match expertise and talents to answer questions and mobilize information and new knowledge,\u201d says Conteh. \u201cMy vision of the NCO is to serve as a platform or conduit for generating, mobilizing, leveraging and applying knowledge of relevance to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conteh researches Canadian public policy, public management, political economy and governance.<\/p>\n

His particular focus is on how regions re-invent themselves in the face of \u201cseismic\u201d local, national and international change.<\/p>\n

For Niagara, this is especially relevant. Over the past decade, the Region has experienced a sharp decline in its manufacturing base and now needs to find new economic opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cNiagara and other regions are going through massive shaking up in their post-industrial restructuring,\u201d says Conteh.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome regions are experiencing crisis but also have opportunities contained within them. So, in Niagara, how do you confront the crisis and exploit the opportunities to position the Region within the global economy?\u201d says Conteh.<\/p>\n

In the NCO brief Moving Niagara towards a knowledge economy<\/a><\/em> that Conteh co-wrote in 2015, he talks about conditions needed to create a knowledge-based economy, which places a heavy emphasis on intellectual skills.<\/p>\n

Activities in such an economy could include the development of: digital technology; alternative energy sources; environmentally-friendly production processes; and biotechnology.<\/p>\n

Conteh has published widely in this area. Highlights of his recent accomplishments include:<\/p>\n