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Competence centres are spearheading international, collaborative research. With an agreement on a three-year research agenda, signed by representatives of the leadership of the Universidad de los Andes (Uniandes) and Globethics during the international conference on Transversal Ethics in Higher Education: Facing the Challenges of Contemporary Societies in Bogotá, from 1 to 3 November 2023, Globethics starts a new period in its organisational life and worldwide partnership engagement.

Weaving competence centres into the global and regional fabric of Globethics has been the organisation’s aim since the end of 2019. From the outset, the objective was to gather likeminded institutions, which have distinguished themselves by conducting high-level research in selected ethical fields and to create an international research network able to advance knowledge both in theory and in praxis and to offer recommendations for the innovation of teaching and learning in ethics. Globethics’ new strategy 2023-2027 brought the dimension of global engagement and academic co-creation further to the fore, and aligned the establishment of competence centres with each of the four thematic strategic priorities.

This vision has now come to fruition with Universidad de los Andes as the first Globethics Competence Center on ethics and standards in higher education (Globethics strategic priority one). Uniandes is a university renowned for its innovative approach to ethics as transversal to teaching, learning, research and higher education governance in the Latin American region and beyond. In the upcoming three year period from 2023 to 2026, Globethics and Uniandes have agreed to work on three main research projects. All three projects carried out by lead researchers in collaboration with colleagues from other institutions, have strong empirical components. They are designed to build on the strengths and experiences of Uniandes, and will investigate for example the effective integration of ethics in the formation of students, in research and curricula. There will also be praxis-oriented projects, which are intended to compare diverse approaches and models of inserting ethics across the curriculum. One of the specific outcomes this competence centre aims at is to engage with other institutions, educators and policymakers from other regions of the world on the research results to foster international alliances of knowledge on ethical standards in higher education.

Manuela Fernandez Pinto and Amélé Ekué, who coordinate the Globethics-Uniandes Competence Centre, together with their steering committee colleagues Maria Eugenia Barroso and Didier Arnulfo Santiago Franco, emphasise that “internationalisation is not just a trend word in higher education. It reflects the intentional efforts for genuine interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research that sheds light on how ethics can be mainstreamed and standardized across the university sector. This can be achieved without losing out of sight the methodological and contextual variances, and our competence centre’s research projects will constitute fascinating milestones to showcase this international comparative dimension of integrating ethics in the higher education framework.”

Individual researchers as well as institutions of higher education and research interested in the Globethics competence centre and collaborative research initiatives may contact the Academy team: academy@globethics.net for further information.