Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City – Tijuana (IBERO) is an institution attached to the Society of Jesus, that promotes humanist formation. For more than 75 years after its creation, the educational leadership of IBERO, based on its academic excellence and social commitment, has gone beyond the classrooms and it is widely recognized as one of the most important private higher formation institutions in Mexico. Its teaching and research activities are sorted into 3 academic divisions that gather a whole of 19 departments, 3 research institutes, 403 professors and full time researchers, 1697 subject teachers, and 894
administrative employees and service staff.IBERO dedicates important efforts to create links with vulnerable social sectors through social incidence programs, and the national and international academic cooperation (www.ibero.mx).
At IBERO, 36 degree programs are offered along with 6 higher university technician careers and 44 postgraduate courses: 11 PhDs, 28 Master degrees and 5 specialties. Likewise, it hosts a large number of courses and diplomas and also languages. The university attends 9900 bachelor degree students, 1164 master students. 240 PhD students and 295 in technical courses.
Interdisciplinar Territorial Dynamics and welfare research chair (Cátedra DTB) is in charge of coordinating IBERO’s participation in the SUS-TER project. Active since 2016, the Chair gathers academicians from the Economics Department and Architecture, Urbanism and Civil Engineering Department (http://arqing.ibero.mx/), besides other researchers in anthropology and sustainability.
Its objective is studying the relationship between territory and different people’s welfare dimensions. The Chair approaches subjects about welfare’s economy, natural resources economy, urbanism (urban planning, urban design, cultural and urban heritage) and anthropology of the territory. The SUS-TER project has allowed the Chair to have a fruitful collaboration with the International Research Center of Social and Solidarity Economy (CIIESS), a collaboration based on bonding with the Bachajón territory, Chiapas, and accompanying the definition of the territorial energizer’s profile, and the development of the curriculum and teaching subjects, and the arrangement of the territorial laboratory.
CIIES is a research-action center that rises as a gathering space between the people working in base social organizations of the social and solidarity economy ( ESS) and the people attached to Jesuit universities, to create thinking and strategic actions that transform reality, building radically democratic and progressive alternative models.
The IBERO team and its partners take part in every activity of the SUS-TER project. Additionally they have a coordination role in the modules and teaching material preparation (WP3) and arrange one of the territorial laboratories ( WP5). Likewise, they support coordination and analysis of necessities, educational offer and gaps identification (WP1) and in the pilot test of the SUS-TER course (WP5).