Puebla, Mexico, March 16, 2018 – The event held at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla’s (BUAP) University Cultural Complex in Mexico gathered key members of the higher education community from across various regions of the continent.

The Fifth Edition of the Inter-American Social-CAMPUS Colloquium took place on March 15^th and 16^th under the theme, “Inter-American Cooperation in Research and Graduate Studies as a Strategy for Sustainable Regional Development.” The Colloquium was organized by IOHE’s CAMPUS Program and Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) in collaboration with the l’Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior (ANUIES).  During this meeting, various ways were discussed though which inter-American cooperation, particularly in the area of research and graduate studies, can act as a strategy to promote sustainable development always with the primary objective of promoting of social inclusion and the reduction of inequalities in access to higher education.

The Colloquium’s extensive program included 50 presentations from 12 countries with the presence of leaders in higher education such as IOHE’s Executive Director, Dr. David Julien, Dr. Rosa Montes, CAMPUS-IOHE’s Executive Director and Executive Director for BUAP’s International Education Centre, ANUIES General Director for Strategic Liaison, Dr. Guillermo Hernández Duque, as well as university Presidents, Vice-Presidents, academics, professors, and other experts in the field.

“As research and graduate education are faced with increasingly complex challenges at any given time, we need to reconsider the traditional way of functioning in order to meet the challenges of sustainable development. Taking into consideration its vast membership of over 350 institutions from across the continent, IOHE represents the ideal platform to generate working groups that address this current and relevant theme and launch initiatives and impact-making projects,” mentioned Dr. Julien, Executive Director of IOHE.

The Colloquium was preceded by a meeting of the CAMPUS-IOHE Program’s Board of Directors under the direction of its President, Dr. José Barbosa, President of Universidad Técnica Particular del Loja, Ecuador, with the presence of Dr. Ruth de la Asunción, Vice-President of Student Life at Universidad de Costa Rica, and Dr. Rosa Montes, Executive Director of CAMPUS-IOHE.  During this meeting current questions related to the Program’s objectives were discussed alongside its ongoing initiatives and strategic planning.