Primeras lecturas acerca de las contribuciones a la agenda 2030 de las unidades académicas en ciencias económicas en Argentina

Abstract

The 21st century´s society demands a sustainable, equitable and inclusive world, in scenarios that are not always favorable, mainly in some regions of the planet. Since a few years, the emergence of a new organizational paradigm has been preached in which the challenges that society imposes and to which organizations must respond responsibly are taken into account. In this framework, the University, as one of the most credible institutions in this society, becomes a leading actor due to its traditional training role and generator of knowledge, but also as a key agent in the development of a more equitable world that contributes to creating solutions to development related problems. The general objective of this work is to investigate the actions and proposals linked to the 2030 Agenda of academic units in Economic Sciences of Argentine National Universities to later analyze possible asymmetries in their development between Argentine economic regions. And to what extent these actions and proposals contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. To achieve the proposed objectives, we began with the exploration of the official websites available of the faculties of economic sciences of state management (34 academic units), which constitute the primary source of information. In this first instance, the faculties, universities or departments of national economic sciences included in the document of the Council of Deans of Faculties in Economic Sciences -C.O.D.E.C.E- were selected, intentionally excluding the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Estadística (UNR) since it will be subject of futher investigations. The findings of this research show an initial mapping of actions and proposals with a comparative approach by region in which it was possible to observe the existence of asymmetries. They inquired about the existence of proposals and actions linked to the categories proposed in this research which, as expressed in this paper, were built by synthesizing the contributions of Vallaeys (2014, 2019) and Kestin et al (2017). Regarding the actions and proposals of the academic units in economic sciences and their relationship with USR, it can be affirmed that, although the initiatives are isolated and do not always reflect coordination with what is proposed by the models proposed in this study, in Argentina they are generally aligned with University Social Responsibility. Another conclusion that derives from the analysis of the results in relation to the SDGs is the direct contribution made by the academic units in economic sciences to their achievement. In general, the Faculties of National Universities have reformist features that involve certain social, environmental and economic issues, which are reflected in economic, international trade and human rights observatories, among others. Institutional and educational development programs and processes carried out internally are also highlighted. However, the effective contribution of each of the actions and proposals to the achievement of the SDGs is presented in an incipient way, there is still a long way to go and it seems that very little time to achieve them.