The Paulo Freire Center for Transdisciplinary Development Research and Dialogical Education in Vienna was founded in 2004. It was initiated as a joint project by The Austrian Research Foundation for International Development (ÖFSE) and the Mattersburg Circle for Development Policies at Austrian Universities (Mattersburger Kreis). From 2009 to 2014 the Freire Center was part of KommEnt. Since 2015 it is part of the Mattersburger Circle.

The Paulo Freire Center offers space for the reflection of political practice. It considers practice (action and reflection) in research, education and politics as part of a process which ultimately aims at the abolition of oppression.

The Paulo Freire Center advocates knowledge as public property. Even if one assumes, for the sake of the argument, that all obstacles to knowledge and education would be removed today (reality points into a different direction), the following questions would remain: How can knowledge be imparted in order to be used to reach the ultimate goal of any development research, the abolition of oppression?! Is it enough to enable as many people as possible to get an education in traditional institutions? In the tradition of Paulo Freire, the Paulo Freire Center says: No, it is not enough! It is rather the teaching method and the ideological vision of education that matter.

Paulo Freire Center

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