University social responsibility (USR) is a fundamental pillar for the development of more sustainable and inclusive societies where organizational and academic impact are combined for the generation and transmission of knowledge, in order to improve the quality of life in a globalized society. Therefore, the objective of this study is to describe how the research projects of the Technical University of the North are articulated under the approach of university social responsibility in the solution of problems framed in the four substantive functions: management, teaching, research and liaison. It is qualitative research with a hermeneutic approach. The methodological design is based on an exploratory, descriptive and documentary case study to analyze the particularities in which the social responsibility of the TUN is evidenced in its context. The results show a highly marked tendency for the research axis followed by the management, teaching and liaison in their order, the articulation of the substantive functions advocates a management model with social relevance and educational quality assurance that relates to local, national and global challenges.

Keywords: social responsibility, higher education, social impact, university community.

Social Responsibility (SR) is a concept originating from the business world; however, it has gained presence in various fields, including education and particularly in Higher Education. The Green Book of the European Union defines it as:

A concept whereby companies decide to voluntarily contribute to improving society and preserving the environment. Through it, companies become aware of the impact of their actions on everyone and express their commitment to contribute to economic development, as well as to improving the quality of life of workers and their families, the local community in which they operate and society as a whole (Commission of the European Communities, 2001, p.6).

Social responsibility develops when an organization becomes aware of itself and its role in its environment. It involves engaging with the community and facilitating feedback with the environment. This awareness is linked to ethical concerns (Vallaeys, 2014). For Almeida and Arrechavaleta (2018) corporate social responsibility (CSR), also known as business social responsibility (BSR) was shaped by the social demands of the market. While university social responsibility (USR) arises as a response to the social needs of knowledge development; not only in favor of the company, industry or agriculture, but for the progress and improvement of an entire locality, region or country.

In this line of time and thought, historically universities, as part of their social responsibility, have educated and helped to improve the living conditions of society. They disseminate, initially through orality and later through manuscripts the facts discovered through empirical and research; from there comes, the factual university social responsibility (USR), as a university management policy (Duque & Cervantes-Cervantes, 2019), where solidarity social projection is redefined by a comprehensive approach that focuses on administrative and academic impacts of all university processes (Vallaeys & Álvarez, 2019).

Vallaeys (2007) states that the USR "is a systemic, holistic and ethical quality management policy of the University, it is based on the conscious will of individuals integrated in collectives that assume the institutional development to align its four essential processes (management, teaching, research, extension) with the vision and mission, its principles and values" (p.11). The four substantive axes of what the university does are aligned and guide the development of social proposals with a completely different approach to competing in the market; its purpose is to humanize, perfect higher intellectual capacities, promote reflection, develop criticality, form entities with ethical principles and values to build a planetary citizenship (Almeida & Arrechavaleta, 2018).

The Union of Latin American University Social Responsibility (ULAUSR) specifically defines USR as: "The comprehensive and transversal management of all social and environmental impacts of HEIs, from all processes of training, research, extension and organizational management, with a view to achieving the SDGs in their social sphere of incidence" (Vallaeys, 2021, p. p.45). This perspective is interesting because it defines USR in terms of impact management, which implies a direct interrelationship with the environment in the form of social co-responsibility.

Although the relationship between the university and society is historical and the links have different characteristics, the impact of scientific research on development is undeniable. The transfer of results favors constant updating and improvement, generates new contexts of knowledge application that allow providing solutions to social, cultural, political, economic, educational and other needs (Basantes, et al., 2017). The purpose of which is to cooperatively exploit the cognitive resources based on the universities own intellectual capital and put them at the service of society.

According to Herrera (2008), USR focuses on the usefulness of knowledge, that is, the articulation of knowledge in the context of its application (scientific, technological, humanistic and artistic) to local, national and global needs in favor of improving the quality of life. Along the same lines, (Severino-González et al., 2022) point out that university social responsibility is linked to the role of higher education institutions as protagonists of transcendental changes in society, who determine the development of strategies that contribute to social awareness.

In the last three decades there have been different economic, political and social changes in the university sector, as a consequence, higher education institutions have had to reform their actions to face the new social challenges (Larran & Andrades, 2017). The USR proposes, from a holistic vision, to articulate the various parts of the institution in a project of social promotion of ethical principles and equitable and sustainable social development, for the production and transmission of responsible knowledge and the formation of professional citizens of status. The teachers of the Technical University of the North (TUN) within the four substantive axes of university work: teaching, research, management and liaison. They have the opportunity to formulate and execute research projects with a social focus; associated with the problems facing humanity, inequality, disproportionate growth, poverty, health, exploitation of the planet, sustainability among other situations of urgent attention.

It should be noted that TUN promotes USR and declares it in its mission, identifying itself as a public and accredited Higher Education Institution that trains professionals of excellence, ethical, critical, humanistic, leaders and entrepreneurs with social responsibility. This generates, promotes and executes research, knowledge transfer, scientific, technological and innovation processes; it is linked to the community, with sustainability criteria to contribute to the social, economic, cultural and ecological development of the region and the country. In this sense, the TUN corroborates what Martí et al. (2014) mentioned, which highlights the need to train qualified professionals with high regard for their duty to society.

TUN's vision states that it will be an international, sustainable, intercultural and humanistic university; a leader in comprehensive and inclusive education with social impact in the development of research, innovation, entrepreneurship and networking. It will be the academic response to the social and productive demand that contributes to transformation and sustainability; a vision that reveals the university's social projection with the sectors of its local, national and international environment.

This article aims to explain how the research projects of the Technical University of the North are articulated under the approach of university social responsibility in the solution of problems in the four substantive functions of management, teaching, research and liaison.

 

This research is based on the qualitative paradigm with a hermeneutic approach. The methodological design is based on an exploratory, descriptive and documentary case study; in order to analyze the particularities of the social responsibility of the Technical University of the North (TUN) in its context. The purpose of descriptive statistics is to describe the analysis population.

In order to respond to the objective of this research, initially all the research projects that TUN, university teachers developed between 2017 to 2021 were taken as a reference, corresponding to 517 projects (See Table 1).

Table 1
Number of TUN projects developed between 2017-2022

Year	Number of research projects
2017	97
2018	147
2019	148
2020	48
2021	77
Total	517

It should be noted that at the Technical University of the North there are three ways of presenting a research project: 1) internal projects that do not require financing for their execution, 2) call projects which are characterized by the financing they receive from the TUN for their execution and 3) external international projects; whose financing comes from competitive funds. In order to achieve the proposed objective, the following inclusion criteria (IC) and exclusion criteria (EC) were established:

Inclusion criteria:

• IC1: Call research from 2017 to 2021.
• IC2: Research completed with closure report.
• IC3: Research with dissemination and transfer of results established.
• IC4: I Research with developed products (articles, books, software, technology among others).
• IC5: Research with duration of 1 year.

Exclusion criteria:

• EC1: Internal and external projects (international research)
• EC2: Research with the following status: registered, in progress, in the process of closing or in extension.
• EC3: Research that did not declare the dissemination and transfer of results.
• EC4: Research with no scientific production.
• EC5: Research with a duration of less than 1 year.

Table 2 shows the number of projects that make up the object of study (142) and how they are distributed in relation to the year of execution.

Table 2
Number of TUN projects developed between 2017-2022

Year	Number of research projects
2017	2
2018	67
2019	67
2020	3
2021	3
Total	142

Data collection techniques

Interviews were used for the study, which allowed the collection of information to analyze the lines of research, policies and actions related to USR carried out at the TUN under study. The information gathered showed the commitment of the research professors to university social responsibility in each of the substantive areas of teaching, research, management and liaison; that is, the responsibility and commitment of the professors in solving problems for the benefit of society.

In addition, observation and content analysis were used; information on each project was compiled using Microsoft Excel files, considering the following fields: project name, type, project director and assistant director, researcher members or work team, faculty, career, research group to which the project belongs, line of research in which it is profiled, objective, start date, end date, publications and products. The purpose was to identify to which area of social responsibility each research project belongs.

Treatment of the information

Once the information was organized, we proceeded to carry out an Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA); whose objective according to Batanero et al. (1991, p. 91) is: "First, the visual importance of data representation is diminished, giving it exclusively to calculations, and second, the analysis will be equated with the confirmatory model". In other words, statistical tables (graphs) of the categories established in the object of study were prepared; in order to have general information obtained in the Excel matrix, as well as to review the existence of possible errors. From the analysis, four areas of institutional action were explored: management, teaching, research and linkage with society and the ten lines of research in force at the Technical University of the North, namely:

1. Industrial Production and Sustainable Technology.
2. Sustainable Agriculture, Livestock and Forestry Development.
3. Biotechnology, Energy and Renewable Natural Resources.
4. Sustainable Food Sovereignty, Security, and Safety.
5. Health and Integral Wellness.
6. Management, Quality of Education, Pedagogical Processes and Languages.
7. Artistic Development, Design and Advertising.
8. Social Development and Human Behavior.
9. Management, Production, Productivity, Innovation and Socio-economic Development.
10. Development, software application and cyber security.

Since this was qualitative research with a hermeneutic approach and descriptive focus, the information was processed using the content analysis technique. According to Thomas and Harden (2008), the qualitative meta-analysis began with open coding through content analysis standards established by the authors of the research. Adjusted to the criteria of the proposed objective and subsequently, the themes that allowed establishing the correlations between the subcategories of analysis were described.

Table 3
Units of analysis and indicators

Unit of analysis	Indicators
Teaching	Academic practices aimed at solving social problems. Explicit content in the curriculum on social responsibility. Social equity is promoted from the contents. Ethical values incorporated in teaching. Establishment of an education for life.
Management	The creation of internal and external multidisciplinary projects is favored. Agreements with key institutions and social organizations. Institutional policies that benefit marginalized groups. Promotes environmental protection through institutional policies.
Liaison	Agreements for students to carry out their internships in communities. Projects in communities.
Research	Lines of research that respond to the solution of social problems, including vulnerable communities. Generates local development and contributes to the quality of life of the population. Sustainable development (impact on sustainability, ecologically responsible projects). Contributes to fostering social awareness and participation (generates social participation mechanisms that contribute to generate civic engagement). Solidarity-based (attends to and satisfies the needs of others). Inclusion and social and labor insertion of groups with difficult employability and integration of people with disabilities. Cultural development.

Table 3 presents the unit of analysis and the indicators to be considered for its classification.

Figure 1. TUN research projects in relation to the line of investigation

Figure 1 presents the number of scientific research projects that teachers of the Universidad Técnica del Norte, which have been executed in the period 2017-2021 in relation to the ten lines of research in force in the university house.

Contrasting with the total number of call projects (142), Figure 1 shows that the research lines that group the largest number of University projects are: line 9 (Management, Production, Productivity, Innovation and Socioeconomic Development) with 24 projects, line 1 (Industrial Production and Sustainable Technology) with 23 projects and line 8 (Social Development and Human Behavior) with 22 projects. However, the lines 6 (Management, Quality of Education, Processes) and 3 (Biotechnology, Energy and Natural Resources) are followed by 13 projects each.

Regarding the distribution of research projects by years and lines of research, it can be observed in Table 4 an increasing trend from 2017 to 2019, from 2 projects to 67 projects executed, in 2020 and 2021. The projects submitted by teachers decreased notably, 3 projects in each year, this drop is attributed to the pandemic caused by Covid-19; since teachers focused on teaching practice and their professional training to respond to the online study modality.

Table 4
Research projects by year and lines of research

Lines of research	Projects per year
	2017	%	2018	%	2019	%	2020	%	2021	%
1. Industrial Production and Sustainable Technology	0	0,00%	10	7,04%	10	7,04%	2	1,41%	1	0,70%
2. Sustainable Agriculture, Livestock and Forestry Development	1	0,70%	2	1,41%	4	2,82%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
3. Biotechnology, Energy and Renewable Natural Resources	0	0,00%	13	9,15%	4	2,82%	0	0,00%	2	1,41%
4. Sovereignty, Security and Sustainable Food Safety	0	0,00%	3	2,11%	1	0,70%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
5. Integral Health and Wellness	0	0,00%	3	2,11%	9	6,34%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
6. Management, Quality of Education, Pedagogical Processes and Languages	0	0,00%	7	4,93%	11	7,75%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
7. Artistic Development, Design and Advertising	1	0,70%	4	2,82%	3	2,11%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
8. Social Development and Human Behavior	0	0,00%	11	7,75%	10	7,04%	1	0,70%	0	0,00%
9. Management, Production, Productivity, Innovation and Socio-economic Development	0	0,00%	12	8,45%	12	8,45%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
10. Development, software application and cyber security	0	0,00%	2	1,41%	3	2,11%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
Total	2		67		67		3		3

The results of the coding of the call projects in relation to university social responsibility with the substantive axes of teaching, research, management and liaison (see Table 5). There is a strong tendency for the research axis, 49.30% of the projects are focused on the solution of problems such as the effects of climate change, characterization of fungal diversity, microgrid energy storage, conservation of biological collections and others. Followed with 24.65% in the area of management; whose focus is on problems such as university sustainability, restoration of natural landscapes, alternatives for seed conservation, management of professional skills profiles, management of digital spaces for the dissemination and transfer of art and natural resources, management of food pollution, among others. With 17.61% in the teaching axis with research on the development of digital teaching skills, the use of technology to improve the academic performance of students, development of an adaptive evaluation model using probabilistic reasoning to support the teaching-learning process, among others. Finally, the linkage axis with 8.45% with projects that create a direct relationship with the internal and external community in the strengthening, updating, improvement of knowledge and the development of local, national and international enterprises through technology.

Table 5
Research projects in relation to the university's substantive lines of research by lines of research

Lines of research	Research	% I	Management	% G	Liaison	% V	Teaching	% D
1. Industrial Production and Sustainable Technology	21	14,79%	1	0,70%	1	0,70%	0	0,00%
2.Sustainable Agriculture, Livestock and Forestry Development	4	2,82%	3	2,11%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%
3.Biotechnology, Energy and Renewable Natural Resources	12	8,45%	6	4,23%	0	0,00%	1	0,70%
4. Sovereignty, Security and Sustainable Food Safety	3	2,11%	0	0,00%	1	0,70%	0	0,00%
5. Health and Integral Wellness	5	3,52%	3	2,11%	0	0,00%	4	2,82%
6. Management, Quality of Education, Pedagogical Processes and Languages	2	1,41%	3	2,11%	2	1,41%	11	7,75%
7.Artistic Development, Design and Advertising	2	1,41%	2	1,41%	2	1,41%	2	1,41%
8. Social Development and Human Behavior	8	5,63%	10	7,04%	2	1,41%	2	1,41%
9.Management, Production, Productivity, Innovation and Socio-economic Development	11	7,75%	7	4,93%	4	2,82%	2	1,41%
10.Development, software application and cyber security	2	1,41%	0	0,00%	0	0,00%	3	2,11%
Total	70	49,30%	35	24,65%	12	8,45%	25	17,61%

The Technical University of the North has been able to contribute in an objective and permanent way in the solution of social problems from different areas of knowledge; each project planned and executed by the research professors is inserted in the communities of the local (urban and rural) and regional sectors, where the TUN has presence to respond to the problems presented in various aspects.

The fulfillment of the mission and vision of the Technical University of the North through the main actors that constitute it, allow to typify the university social responsibility, the development of actions planned from the university house, allow to reach the populations that require them. As well as the people and organizations that request its services, strengthening communication with the outside world and providing knowledge, technical, technological, psychological, educational solutions, among others, in order to improve social coexistence.

The university maintains a close relationship with society, linked to history, social, economic, political, cultural and educational development; with an accumulation of scientific and academic knowledge, training professionals with collaborative skills and attitudes and in terms of social and human values.