University social responsibility in Latin America: debates, institutionalization, and contemporary challenges

Fernández Salguero J.C.; Duche-Pérez A.B.; Del Carpio Ugarte C.A.; Serruto Castillo A. · Frontiers in Education (2026) · DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1861215

Resumen

This article examines university social responsibility (USR) in Latin America as a field of debate, institutionalization, and contemporary challenge. It aims to analyze how USR has evolved from a peripheral notion of outreach and assistance into a broader model of institutional transformation, and to compare how this process has unfolded in Peru and Colombia as two distinct yet convergent national trajectories. The analysis shows that USR in Latin America has developed as a region-specific conceptual and institutional framework rather than as a simple transfer of corporate social responsibility to higher education. The regional debate has generated theoretical approaches, university networks, self-assessment tools, and management models oriented toward integrating university functions with social needs. The study identifies a conceptual shift from value-based approaches to social commitment and, more recently, to the comprehensive management of institutional impacts. Peru stands out for the normative formalization of USR and its explicit incorporation into university governance, especially through Law 30220. Colombia, by contrast, shows a stronger institutional and community-based appropriation, emphasizing participation, university-community relations, and socially engaged professional training. Despite these advances, the article also identifies persistent tensions between conceptual development, normative institutionalization, and effective implementation, particularly in relation to fragmentation, uneven appropriation, and limited integration of USR into curricula, research, and strategic planning. The article offers a comparative and regionally grounded interpretation of USR as a transformative framework for Latin American higher education. Its main value lies in showing that Peru and Colombia represent complementary expressions of a shared regional matrix: one anchored more strongly in legal and managerial institutionalization, the other in organizational practice and community engagement. In doing so, the study contributes to current debates by framing USR not merely as a discourse of social commitment, but as a strategic model for redefining university legitimacy through the articulation of academic excellence, social relevance, institutional responsibility, and territorial engagement.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa; Universidad Católica de Santa María