Empowering Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal using ABCDE

The paper addresses the foundations of governance and democracy by presenting an evidence informed strategy that supports the collection of new evidence through groundwork case studies delivered through a consortium of 11 HEIs in different nation states. The partners working with Senior Credentialed Educational Leaders in schools have developed research questions, addressed by applying A Blueprint for Character Development for Evolution (ABCDE). This paper presents ABCDE as the strategy. Community members start to develop their sense making from observations to their beliefs (A-B) and from their beliefs to their methods (B-C). Community members can move from methods to developing hypotheses (C-D) to developing principles and theories-of-change (D-E). Community members apply ABCDE to develop confidence and trust in themselves and others in a process of becoming self-governing. ABCDE Empowers Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER) by mobilising grass roots up theories-of-change with new partnerships brokered by ‘Professional Educators and Administrators’ Committees for Empowerment’ (PEACE). PEACE is brokered by cross faculty partnerships of HEIs that partner with private, public and third sectors of all spheres in the wider society to produce and exchange knowledge to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper identifies PEACE needs supporting by coherent policy to build trust in societal institutions within a social contract and embedded economy that socialises investment, risk and rewards. The consortium seeks funding to deliver ABCDE and mainstream it, brokered by HEIs as hubs, to achieve the SDGs and address violent extremism including Nigeria, Pakistan and the broader MENA region and the Balkans.