Diseño y capacidad de procesos

The setting up of the “Euro-Latin American area of knowledge and higher education”, which involves both promotion of HE and STI, is not an innovative agenda, but it is a relevant area of cooperation which supports the re-launching of the bi-regional agenda. It

its values and interests with respect to the dissemination of its technologies and the can contribute to its development goals, and in particular, to its need to rise in the global value chain, advancing toward a more productive model which provided added value for its exports and which would therefore imply higher salaries and improved living conditions, corresponding thereby directly and indirectly to the bi-regional goal of greater sustainable solutions as proposed by CELAC and considered in the SDG. This challenge is particularly important for emerging upper-middle income countries, and those with the largest populations in LAC, as the abovmentioned results of the taxonomy and the balance of compliance with MDG revealed.

designed to ensure greater understanding between the regions, based on mutual of institutions of higher education (HEI) in the Latin American region and its actors, promoting organisational improvements in HEI, improving curricula and teaching students, professors and research personnel. At the same time, the reinforcement of research skills as part of EU cooperation with LAC sought to promote technology transfer and encourage innovation processes, such as a deepened participation of Latin American science and technology in the production and knowledge circles at the global level. Currently, through the science and technology agreements and actions in key areas have been prioritised with which LAC partners with elevated capacities in STI receive material support.

the strengthening of HEI and on bi-regional academic mobility. The two programmes that

phases between 1994 to 2013, with a total investment of 162.9 Mio. Euros, and the ALBAN Programme (Latin America – High level grants), which was operative between 2002 and 2010 with a budged of 109.8 Mio. Euros, out of which 75 millions were spent exclusively on grants. The mobility actions were channelled through the Erasmus Mundus within more general EU instruments such as the 2020 Horizon Programme – successor

Erasmus 2015d).

forward proposals for improving the subsequent phases of each programme. There were them and to reach a wider spectrum of HEI. Secondly, strengthening the participation of actors and institutions in Central American countries which have had less of a presence, capacities of the latter by means of intraregional cooperation mechanisms, in a South–

socialise and share the skills and knowledge acquired from the experience of exchange – a recommendation which particularly applies to the the grant programmes.

Most of the subregional agreements of LAC, including CELAC, have adopted regional HE policies, especially regarding mobility, acreditation and inter-institutional cooperation. These initiatives have also contributed to a greater convergence in these areas with the EU (Perrotta 2014).

One of the latest initiatives to be considered in this discussion about the axes of birregional

itself by its interest in issues such as social inclusion, the quality of education at all levels, development of basic and applied research, innovation, the link with the environment two academic summits. Although this forumhas been created only recently, it has the potential to channel a consensual cooperation and collaboration agenda agreed on by agents related to HE which may well help to strengthen governmental actions. Until this moment it has operated as a space for formulating declarations and ha encountered

of the incorporation of participants in this forum have not been very transparent and it is unclear whether it will achieve a higher participation from relevant HE players and whether it will improve its capacity to formulate concrete initiatives for action.

Next to the activities organised by regional bodies directed towards the construction of a bi-regional HE area, the Ibero-American Conference has promoted the Ibero-

American Higher Education Area, with the involvement of non-governmental actors (private foundations) such as of the Santander Group through the Universia platform.

grants information for students, online courses and meetings with Chancellors); and university employment services, training and online marketing. Its agenda is aligned with the Santiago Declaration on university cooperation in HE and STI and with the EU- CELAC area of knowledge. In particular, it aims to share information in respect of HE/ STI systems, to operate in the management of cooperation, to establish procedures for greater articulation between systems and institutions and to develop HE/STI in line with development needs. Precisely for this reason, Universia is attractive to institutions and actors using these services in a regional and bi-regional market of knowledge, without this necessarily being a response to the challenges of LAC in matters of social inclusion, economic development and/or improved productivity.

This interaction of public and private actors should be considered from a broader perspective of the contradictory trends observed in the EULAC area of HE. On the one hand, the dynamics of internationalisation and globalisation place university systems and the generation of knowledge under strong competitive global pressures —international rankings and metrics for evaluation applied both to teachers and researchers and universities—, and lead to HE privatisation and commercialisation processes (Perrotta 2014b). On the other hand, these dynamics also evoke strong social pressures and pave the way toward greater access and the democratisation of knowledge as a mechanism for sustainable development and social cohesion, and toward an enhanced regulatory capacity of governments and regional organisations to improve quality, promote convergence and regional and international cooperation. In this context, it could be questioned whether the agendas of private groups and foundations such as those mentioned above are not eventually going against the goals for cooperation between universities and research centres on either side of the Atlantic established by the bi- regional partnership, namely, the building of bridges for mutual understanding based on solidarity and reciprocity, allowing for a socio-cultural rapprochement and, based on this, the search for strategies to strengthening both HE and STI with a view to resolving improvements in the multilateral governance of the area, but it will also be conditioned by

7.5. Euro-Latin American cooperation in science,