Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (Mexico)

The Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (UAM) is a Public University with a strong social commitment. Among the substantive functions of the UAM that are indicated in its Organic Law, are Teaching, Research and the Diffusion of Culture; activities carried out for a better understanding of reality, from which various proposals have been developed to solve contemporary problems and thus contribute to local, national and international development. One of the articulating axes is participation and collaboration with the environment and social context.

The UAM is linked with different public and private organizations as well as with different sectors of society to help create solutions to social needs in addition to seeking an economically sustainable social impact.

Some of the outstanding activities in this area are:

• During 2019, more than 39 social entrepreneurship ideas from the five university units were registered to participate in the Hultz Prize.
• This year, the Multidisciplinary Program of Design and Crafts (PROMDYA) celebrated 25 years of working hand in hand with different rural and indigenous communities in the country to collaborate in the solution of various social, environmental and economic problems.
• A collaboration agreement was signed with the National Tourism Promotion Fund to carry out research, training, feasibility studies and evaluations related to the various construction stages of the Mayan Train.
• For the third consecutive year, the UAM participated in the “Atrevete a Emprender” Program, organized by the Secretariat of Economic Development of Mexico City, through its Fund for Social Development.
• Students with support from the University participated in the TrempCamp-19, with two projects being finalists; Recycling of RAEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), from the Azcapotzalco Unit, and Dragon Azul (Craft beer made with seawater) from the Iztapalapa Unit.
• During 2019, more than 39 research projects were supported in various areas: social, technical and scientific in conjunction with CONACYT.
• The formation of the UAM Research Networks began, in specific areas of knowledge and in topics framed in the priorities of the national science, technology and innovation sector.

Also with the commitment to promote disciplinary convergence to tackle complex problems, achieve a greater scientific impact and contribute to some sectors of society, it is endorsed through the Institutional Research Programs:

• The Sierra Nevada Research Program promoted Consensus for Water in the citizen, community, academic institutions and basin instances to incorporate, in a citizen initiative, the General Water Law both in Mexico City and at the national level
• In 2019, the Childhood Research Program organized the XII Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Network Childwatch Postcolonial Childhoods in Latin America and the Caribbean; With this, it consolidated work networks in the international sphere through the presentation, discussion and analysis of topics such as migration, education and interculturality, childhood in residential models, social movements and resistance. This generated crucial contributions for the evaluation of public policies on the rights of the child.
• Human development in Chiapas, this Program worked on the design of a sustainable development project through some rural practices. It focused on studying local production processes and identifying cultural practices that put traditional ways of life at risk, reflecting the ancestral practices of indigenous groups located in the Tseltal region of Los Altos de Chiapas.
• In the Human Rights axis, and in collaboration with the Human Rights Committee Fray Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada, AC and the Intercultural University of Chiapas, the work of the elementary-level books Play and Live the Sciences and Values ​​was continued, with the construction of tools for an interculturality from indigenous practices and perspectives. The above are examples of activities carried out by the Metropolitan Autonomous University where its broad civic and social commitment is reflected.