UCP in english
The “Universidad: Construye País” Project was born on 2001, and was set in motion by Corporación Participa in association with The Avina Group, with the purpose to expand the concept and the practice of the Social Responsibility into the Chilean university system.
Under this premise, 13 Chilean Universities joined the initiative by their own authorities’ decision and chose an academic delegate; whitch became the project leader in his own university. Lately, this leaders formed interuniversity teams.
The main results of the project were:
- Formation of a university network and a work community conformed by teachers, workers and students from the adhered universities. All of this with the purpose of promoting the Social Responsibility.
- The creation of a shared conceptual frame about de University Social Responsibility (URS). Also a measuring instrument was created to watch the practice of the URS inside the Universities.
- Four publications composed by papers written by experts about the challenges that the URS presents.
- Coordination in order to present the project to an State Fund (MECESUP). The project was adjudicated by 6 Universities from the network and is already in progress.
- Creation and impulse of “Proyecto Regional Chile 2020”, a project whose objective is to elaborate a vision and a strategy for Chile, in order to achieve a long term development, in witch the Universities are the main protagonist
- To carry out, at least, one Seminar during the year to work on specific aspects of the URS and share de common experiences.
- Implementation of the URS into the organizational structure of the participating Universities.
- A virtual network, hosted in the project web site www.construyepais.cl.
- Links between the participating universities and other university associations through the world, as the GUNI Network, CINDA, AUSJAL and others.
Starting at 2007, the financial support from The Avina Group was over, so, the participating universities decided to organize themselves as the “Universidad Construye País Network”, with financial and administrative autonomy, and invited other universities to join this initiative. The UCP Network defines itself as a group of Universities whitch primary objective is to grow strong the URS concept and practice in each one of them. This objective belongs to the different aspects of the Universities: Teaching, Research, Management and Extension. The goal is to have influence in the Educational Public Policies.
During the first semester of 2007, in order to develop the network, the participating Universities have designed and organized a basic working structure. This structure goes as following:
1. Associated Universities: The Universities associate to the network through the signature of a contract, the designation of a delegate, the payment of a fee and the subscription to a document called “Bases de pertenencia a la red UCP”.
2. Technical Board: The members of this board are the delegates from the associated Universities, designed by the President or Rector of each one of them. The make the decisions and control the performance of the Network.
3. Executive Committee: Three members from the Technical Board form this Committee. Its function is to make the Technical Board workout lighter.
4. Theme Cores: These are work instances shared for several Universities in order to develop a specific topic of the University Social Responsibility concept. Its primary objectives are:
- To generate knowledge and research regarding URS
- To spread the word about the URS
- To have influence in the design of Public Policies
- To create national and international networks regarding URS
- To explore potential financing opportunities
5. Technical Secretariat: A professional team, responsible for the coordination of the network and the Achieving of its objectives. It works under the orders from the Technical Board and relates directly with the Executive Committee.
Actually there are 10 Universities fully associated to the network and four others are in process to become full members. Other Universities showed their interest on becoming part of this initiative.
The main challenge for the network, nowadays, is to have stability in its structure and work. In order to achieve this goal, on July 30th, 2007 took place the First UCP Network Technical Board Meeting in the Universidad de Concepción. In this opportunity, the Board checked the advance of the work during the last semester. Also it decided the strategy for the next semester; whitch follows the activation of the Theme Cores.
