FOR A SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE UNIVERSITY

Per alzare un poco il tono dei programmi a livello globale, mi permetto di segnalare ai candidati Rettori e ai rappresentanti studenti e a tutti gli interessati, questo testo di alto profilo.   Saluti, MC

Given the complexity of present and future global challenges, it is the university´s social responsibility to contribute to society by understanding the full extent of its needs and current and future problems, and to prepare it to deal with them effectively and efficiently (CMES, 2009)1. In this sense, due to its ability to take the lead in matters of knowledge creation, promotion and dissemination, the university becomes the ultimate guidance governments possess in their quest to find solutions to inequality and exclusion. Thus, reaching higher levels of education that promote the training of concerned citizens, committed to seeking the welfare and progress of their peoples. The social calling of the university includes the transmission of the necessary culture, values, skills and attitudes to achieve an ethical, responsible, caring and transformer behavior of the human being. Therefore, it should encourage their integration and participation in the economic, political, social and cultural fields. The Regional Conference on Higher Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (CRES2 by its Spanish acronyms), held in Cartagena de Indias in 2008, raised the need for the education in Latin America and the Caribbean to contribute to a democratic coexistence and tolerance, a continental identity and a spirit of solidarity and cooperation, and to create equal opportunities of access for the poor, contributing to the social and productive transformation of societies in the region. Hence, the quality of an education committed to the values and public goals could never be a factor of more inequity and barbarism, instead it should generate opportunities and possibilities that propitiate a more advanced civilization. As part of its social responsibility, the university should place the urgent and serious issues of humanity at the center of its agenda, orienting knowledge, and all its critical skills in view of the highest ideals of freedom, social justice, peace and development. In that way, the responses of higher education to social demands must be based on the reflective, rigorous, critical and committed
1 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education. The social responsibility of higher education. Paris, 2009. Final Communiqué ED.2009/CONF.402/2. At: http://www.unesco.org/education/WCHE2009/comunicado_es.pdf
2 IESALC - UNESCO. Declaration of the Regional Conference on Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 2008. At: http://www.iesalc.unesco.org.ve/docs/wrt/declaracioncres_espanol.pdf
capacity of the university community to define their goals and fulfill their working guidelines3.
These ideas have full effect on the commitment of the Cuban university in the ongoing effort to improve the quality of its product research, teaching and extension, so much so, that the scientific policy of the Ministry of Higher Education of the Republic of Cuba has focused on obtaining research results of great relevance, in order to solve the main problems of our country´s socio-economic development. These scientific outcomes are to be applied and generalized in the various branches and sectors of the economy, and other areas of society. On the other hand, the interaction between universities and state agencies, enterprises and other entities is being increased, so as to meet professionals´ training and improvement needs by using the most suitable postgraduate training4.
In the Inaugural Conference of the International Congress Universidad 2012, the former Cuban Higher Education Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermúdez said:
"If we accept that the university is the quintessential social institution best able to preserve, enhance and disseminate culture in its broadest sense, it is logical to expect that the institution is the one to put the most advanced knowledge to the service and safeguard of humanity, in the most comprehensive and inclusive way possible. It could be said then, that we need to strongly defend two very closely related convictions. The first is that higher education should be considered as a social public asset that benefits society as a whole, and the second is that it is largely of its concern to encourage changes and not just react to new developments ..."
The conceptual elements that derive from the social responsibility of the university, the diversity of ways to implement policies and to put into practice actions to that endeavor, constitute important topics to discuss, in order to face current challenges and future directions of contemporary higher education.
3 To deepen, see: Aponte – Hernández, E. (2008). Desigualdad, inclusión y equidad en la Educación Superior en América Latina. In: Tendencias de la Educación Superior en América Latina y el Caribe. IESALC-UNESCO, 2008.
4Alarcón Ortiz, R., Minister of Higher Education. Higher Education Ministry Report to the National Assembly of the People´s Power(Parliament). July, 2012.
5 Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, M., current Vicepresident of the Council of Ministers. Inaugural Conference of the 8th International Congress Universidad 2012, Ministry of Higher Education, Havana, February, 2012.
Due to the stated reasons, the Ministry of Higher Education of the Republic of Cuba and the Cuban universities call to the 9th International Congress on Higher Education "Universidad 2014", for a socially responsible university, an issue of particular importance in the debate about the university we need.
Scientific Committee, Universidad 2014.