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Social participation or public participation is a mechanism that aims to enable decision makers to understand the real needs of society and to promote more appropriate and acceptable public policies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze, through Douglasian Cultural Theory, the public-consultation mechanism, and to what extent it encourages the participation of people with different points of view in the formulation of public policies.

This research paper uses theoretical propositions from Douglasian Cultural Theory to investigate the process of public consultation adopted by the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) in the formulation of public policies for Brazil’s health sector.

The results contribute to the findings of previous studies, i.e., that social participation is unequal, and that some points of view are dominant in policy formulation. This indicates that public managers should seek mechanisms of participation that promote more inclusive and pluralistic public participation.

The main limitations of this study are the subjectivity inherent in the classification of “voices” in Douglasian Cultural Theory, the small number of contributions analyzed and the absence of some unpublished data.

The analysis contributes to the literature by supporting some and rejecting other propositions of Douglasian Cultural Theory, as well as indicating possible potential from this theory through public administration in the evaluation of mechanisms of social participation.

The Voice of the Clinician project commenced during an era when practitioner burnout, dissatisfaction, and turnover became an increasingly global health workforce concern. One key problem is clinical staff not being empowered to voice their concerns to decision-makers, as was found in this case study of an Australian public health organization. The following research question informed the present study: What is a better committee system for clinician engagement in decision-making processes? The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The Mid North Coast Local Health District in New South Wales aspired to improve engagement between frontline clinicians and decision-makers. Social network analysis methods and mathematical modeling were used in the discovery of how committees are connected to each other and subsequently to other committee members.

This effort uncovered a hidden organizational architecture of 323 committees of 926 members which overall cost 84,729 person hours and AUD$2.923 million per annum. Furthermore, frontline clinicians were located far from centers of influence, just 37 percent of committees had terms of reference, and clinicians reported that meeting agendas were not being met.

In response to the findings, a technological platform was created so that the board of directors could visually see all the committees and the connections between them, thus creating ways to further improve communication, transparency of process, and – ultimately – clinician engagement.

The breakthrough idea is that all organizational meetings can be seen as a system of engagement and should be analyzed to determine and describe the points and pathways where clinician voice is blocked.

This paper aims to analyze the sustainability approach within higher education institutions. Universities, as institutions of knowledge, play an important and strategic role in maximizing social and economic benefits in a hands-on way. However, some studies on sustainable development and HEIs reveal a distancing between students and the application of sustainable initiatives in universities. This fact differs from the premises of the Talloires Declaration, which points to students as a community and as global leaders and ambassadors for sustainability.

This paper mapped the approaches, present in the literature, used to develop sustainable campuses and in particular the apparent dichotomy between the changes indicated as top-down or bottom-up in HEIs. To that end, scientific articles focused on sustainable actions in HEIs were analyzed to identify implementation approaches for sustainable development and student involvement in the process.

Results have shown that sustainability promotion models in universities generally occur in a top-down manner, where students are receptors and not sources of development for sustainable policies in universities. Thus, the authors highlight the importance of students becoming central players in sustainable initiatives.

The article becomes original when it identifies the dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up approaches. It does so through multidimensional scaling and exploratory factorial analysis in scientific articles on the topic Sustainability Funding in Higher Education. These findings show that, unlike what is discussed in the literature, sustainability promotion in universities generally occurs in a top-down manner, where students are receptors and not active agents in promoting sustainability. In response to this, the authors discussed the importance of the bottom-up approach, where they are key players.

This investigation is based on the rich experiences of alumni from a reputable public higher education institution (HEI) in Pakistan. Its primary goal is to assess and investigate the relationship between the institution’s long-term sustainability strategies and alumni impressions. The inquiry aligns with the global changing landscape of HEIs, which demands more robust and marketing-driven strategies to achieve long-term sustainability through engaging various stakeholders.

The study employs a phenomenological research design to offer fresh insights into the effectiveness of alumni engagement practices. This research uses semi-structured interviews with nine alumni to contribute an interesting and important narrative regarding alumni’s experiences with engagement strategies.

The findings show that alumni strongly desire to maintain contact with their institution and support in various ways, thus signifying the importance of alumni engagement. In the broader context, alumni engagement can support HEIs to avoid the risks of losing education standards in financially strict times and achieve sustainable development.

By actively involving alumni, HEIs in Pakistan can support their sustainable development, strengthen their financial position, raise educational standards, access resources and more. This research provides a way for Public HEIs to attract external support to address the growing institution’s sustainability concerns and avoid the risk of deteriorating education.

The present research extends to the existing body of knowledge regarding Pakistan’s developing economy, while earlier studies have primarily concentrated on alumni studies from developed nations. The study has theoretically expanded the use of the stimulus-organism-response framework and introduced several new constructs not examined or utilized in earlier alumni studies.