ITESO AND REACH ALLIANCE: A COALITION FOR INNOVATION IN RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Published by Rebeca Acevez, Andrea Fellner, Daniela Gloss and Gregorio Leal    |    

The Reach Alliance is an initiative founded in 2015 at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. The aim of the program is to convene students from different educational levels at leading universities around the world to explore creative and local solutions to global challenges.
This initiative works with ITESO through a methodology which is jointly constructed. The program consists of a one-year work cycle accompanied by mentors from ITESO and the University of Toronto. Subsequently, participating students conduct field research in Mexico, in the real-life settings of Professional Application Projects (PAPs) and/or research projects associated with the Interdisciplinary Center for Social Formation and Engagement [CIFOVIS], in order to develop a case study and proposals for the dissemination of the resulting knowledge.

The first two collaborations of that kind were carried out between 2019 and 2020. The first consisted in a collaboration with local food banks, within the framework of the "Jalisco without Hunger" research project. The second took place in the FabLab that ITESO had installed in the Nueva Santa María Parish, Cerro del Cuatro. From 2020 to 2021, work was carried out with Pro Sociedad on the 
evaluation of the women's entrepreneurship program "Co-Meta”, as well as a continuation of the work with the FabLab.
Reach students, each one of them at a different point in its research project, visited ITESO this year in June. The first team returned to Tequila, Jalisco to share their findings with the local growers the students had worked with in 2022. The second team conducted their fieldwork in the upper Lerma-Chapala-Santiago basin. Both teams were involved in ITESO's own academic activities where they followed up on the methodology of joint construction to continue generating knowledge about the projects.
The team that returned to Tequila took part in the final presentation of the PAP "Strategic Projects in Tequila", where they presented a synthesis of the results of their research. After the presentation, they participated in roundtable discussions with PAP students, stakeholders, professors, and members of the Beckmann Foundation (this PAP's partner organization). At the end of the roundtable discussions, there was a social gathering where all members shared ideas and views on the various projects. To conclude, the students designed a space with small Tequila producers to discuss the findings of the project and ways to incorporate them into their initiatives, as well as ways to promote innovation in their small businesses.

The second team that visited ITESO worked from 2022 to 2023 in the upper Lerma-Chapala-Santiago basin.  Their visit focused on learning about and analyzing women's participation in agroecology, community tree nurseries and reforestation initiatives. This project will be incorporated into an axis of the research project "Care policies: Women's struggles for the defense of territory in Jalisco", coordinated by Daniela Gloss from CIFOVIS and financed by ITESO's Research Support Fund. The students conducted their fieldwork with academics and students who are part of the research team in four communities in the basin: El Salto, Juanacatlán, La Noria and Casablanca. Together with communities, they participated in activities such as the "Horror Tour", a workday in a tree nursery in El Salto, and two meetings of female human rights defenders. Likewise, the Canadian students met with students from the PAP named Alter CÓDIGO, who also collaborated in said research project.
 
This year, on November 16 and 17, the CIFOVIS academics and mentors will participate in the International Research Conference of the Reach Alliance Program where the research findings of the students who collaborated with ITESO will be presented. During the academic year from 2023 to 2024, we will collaborate with the research project "Management of local agri-food systems for food security", with organizations of agroecological food producers, distributors, and consumers of agroecological food.

The accompanying team from CIFOVIS, Rebeca Acevez, Andrea Fellner, Daniela Gloss and Gregorio Leal, noted that the students were able to get involved in the environments they visited by not putting so much stress on the data they wanted to obtain. Rather, they focus on understanding and experimenting, and then they ask questions and make a detailed record of what they observed. In this regard, the academics emphasize that this is the hallmark that distinguishes this experience from any other. 

Sensitivity and deep understanding of the environment and its people is something that characterizes different ways of doing research at ITESO, but also the PAPs, two bastions that remain as a strong legacy that different academics from CIFOVIS work to keep alive and that are an important part of ITESO's hallmark. In short, this articulation represents an example that the combination of methodological innovation, internationalization, training, research, and PAPs is possible.

To learn more about the studies that have been carried out, please click on the following links:
https://reachalliance.org/news/case-study/addressing-food-insecurity-jalisco-mexico/ https://reachalliance.org/news/case-study/digital-upskilling-in-a-conflict-zone-guadalajara- mexico/
https://reachalliance.org/news/case-study/womens-economic-empowerment-in-jalisco- evaluating-the-co-meta-initiative-and-collective-impact/  https://reachalliance.org/news/case-study/the-making-of-a-makerspace-community-stories- and-lessons-from-interventions-in-cerro-del-cuatro/
https://reachalliance.org/news/case-study/strengthening-small-family-businesses-in-tequila- mexico/

For further information, please write to: cifovis@iteso.mx