The International University Terre Citoyenne — UITC (literally “Citizen Earth”) has neither campus nor walls. It exists in the relationships woven between the organisations and people who make it up, spread across four continents. A network we readily describe as “low-intensity”: we don’t exchange every day, but what we build together is built to last.

Our purpose fits in one sentence: in the face of the crises and collapses unfolding today, and those we will face tomorrow, to strengthen capacities for resistance, resilience, connection and cooperation, so that everyone can carry out transformative action, at a personal level as well as at the level of the societies we live in.

Where we come from

UITC grew out of an accumulation of training experiences carried out since the 1990s on four continents, within the framework of the International Alliance Terre Citoyenne. This alliance brought together leaders of farmers’ organisations, heads of fishers’ organisations, the World Mountain People Association, and NGOs working on food, natural resource management, sustainable supply chains and biodiversity.

• 2006: the first idea emerges.
• 2009: an informal structure is set up.
• 11 March 2011: the institutions involved in this venture sign the Valencia Declaration, UITC’s founding document. A charter serves as its frame of reference.
• 17 December 2011: the association is registered in the French Official Journal.
• 2020–2022: creation of the UITC-Terre Citoyenne Endowment Fund, the funding instrument for the network’s activities.

Our approach

Crossing knowledge rather than ranking it

We organise spaces for dialogue where different kinds of knowledge meet. A farmer who has been observing his soil for thirty years, a resident who knows her neighbourhood from the inside, a researcher who models agrarian systems: each holds part of what needs to be understood. We call this living knowledge, and we treat it as such.

Training for complexity

We seek to train social, economic and political leaders able to create the conditions for systemic change — the kind that involves the majority of citizens. The skills we aim for: acting and thinking in complexity, leading multi-stakeholder processes, transforming conflicts constructively, mobilising emotional and intuitive intelligence, and recognising and building on the emerging future.

Building on what already exists

Territories, enterprises and collective initiatives have embarked on processes of deep transformation. They are social laboratories of change: concrete places of learning, footholds for widening the resilience of societies. Our work consists in identifying them, giving them visibility and connecting them in networks.

How we are organised

UITC brings together around twenty organisations of very varied kinds: universities and university chairs, research and training centres, NGOs, social organisations and Terre Citoyenne nuclei.

UITC member organisations: Fédération des MJC Île-de-France; West African Association for the Development of Artisanal Fisheries (ADEPA); ENFOC/Contag, training centre for farmers’ and rural leaders (Brazil); World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFF); CNCPRT, national farmers’ movement (Chad); Cenca (NGO, Peru); Chair at La Metro University (Ecuador); Terre Citoyenne Chair at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain); IXIL University (Guatemala); CAPEC (Argentina); World Mountain People Association (APMM); Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Etnobiología (SEEB) (Ecuador); Association Gune (Senegal); Next Planning (Grenoble, France); Plancton et Innovations (France); Traversées (Argentina); MINADEV Consulting (Cameroon).

Partner organisations: Pêche et Développement (France); Asociación Paraguay Orgánico (Paraguay); ALTERVIDA (Paraguay); Geography Research Centre, University of Volos (Greece); École de la Paix (Grenoble); CINEP (Colombia); École Française de ProcessWork (EFPW); Institut Approche et Transformation Constructives des Conflits (ATCC); Jinukun (Benin).

It is led by a Board of Directors (David Bodinier, Beatriz Giobelina, Kolyang Palébélé) chaired by Pierre Vuarin.

It is supported by the International Colligence, which brings together around a hundred people taking part in this process of collective intelligence and initiative.

A Socio-Scientific Committee of around thirty people, drawn from academia and social movements, accompanies and sponsors the approach. Its members support validation processes and stimulate work on strategic themes.

Socio-Scientific Committee (CSS): Alejandro Angulo (Colombia), Pedro Avendaño Garcés (Ecuador), Pierre Mollo (France), José María García Álvarez-Coque (Spain), Pablo Ceto (Guatemala), Suzana Moreau (Argentina), Elisabeth Peredo Beltrán (Bolivia), Jean-Louis Le Moigne (France), Jeanot Minla M’fou’ou (Cameroon), Dao The Anh (Vietnam), Dacian Cioloș (Romania), Lucilia Machado (Brazil), René Segbenou (Benin), Silvio Marzaroli (Uruguay).

The registered office is in Paris.