The Strategy of Social Responsibility at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana …
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in addition to the fact that their interaction is a priority for human beings and their
relations with the environment. As a result, this focus is established as an institutional bet that seeks to confront problems related to water, food, and territory,
in the context of society’s relations with nature. These problems go through the
interpretation and design of proposals from interdisciplinary fields, considering that
the UPB stands in a privileged position where it is possible to draw attention to
what is happening in society. Sectors, groups, institutions, and society all look up to
academia for scientific, technical, and comprehensive interpretations to think critically about alternatives in the face of specific manifestations. Concurrently, another
strategic focus, energy, seeks for solutions that satisfy the rising high-energy demand
in the coming years. This demand will be supported by the implementation of new
energy sources, greater efficiency, balance in the distribution of energy resources, as
well as new lifestyles, which allow the adjustment of the variety of costs and minimize the environmental impact generated by the population’s growth. Both of these
focuses recently joined efforts to promote collaborative work and the articulation of
academic-administrative initiatives that enable co-creation between schools, faculties, and research groups (internal relationship of the academic-research communities). From this internal collaboration, a joint program was launched and entitled Habitat and Sustainability. The program aims to implement an interdisciplinary
mobile laboratory that allows a dialog of knowledge between the communities’ traditional knowledge and the systematic knowledge generated in academia. Jointly and
collaboratively, the mobile laboratory seeks to build solutions to social problems
related to a more sustainable habitat that can improve the livelihoods of different
communities. After its configuration, the program built a map of capacities that
contains the relationship with different stakeholders and the previous cooperation
efforts made inside and outside of the university. Hereinafter, the program stated
their lines of actions in order to ensure solid and strengthened proposals that were in
line with the SDGs and with the Strategic Plan of the university. Particular attention
was put on previous initiatives related to healthy living habits, environmental sanitation measurements, minimum conditions for living in a house and for obtaining and
using energy, the minimum technical construction for the of housing stability, the
adequate use of resources and sustainability, identification of available resources and
their proper use, empowerment of their culture, territory, and capabilities and, finally,
education with an intercultural approach, respecting and reflecting the knowledge of
different communities.
The lines of actions of the program and its manifestos are as follows:
– Governance and Governance for Sustainability
The line understands the complexity of the interaction between stakeholders, society,
the private sector, the state, and the academia for political processes of decisionmaking and formulation and implementation of public policies in a participative and
collaborative manner in the search for sustainable, inclusive, and equitable development. Therefore, the line addresses questions of how, by whom, and for whom
environmental decisions are made and about the access, use, appropriation, and
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