The Millennium Nucleus for the Integral Development of Territories (CEDIT), which was officially inaugurated on June 9, will focus its research efforts on generating interdisciplinary information for the development of public policies that have the territory and its communities at the center of development. .
PUC Communications.- Territorial development is a concept that can be complex, since its definition will vary according to the perspective from which it is observed. In a traditional way, it can be understood as income growth and poverty reduction. However, this does not fully cover the different aspects of the subject.
Considering that decentralization and regionalization are topics in vogue, having information on how to carry out these processes is essential to generate public policies that are appropriate for each territory.
For this reason, it is that the Millennium Nucleus for the Comprehensive Development of Territories (CEDIT) -financed by the National Research and Development Agency (ANID)– focuses on research to bridge the gap between the social sciences and the generation of public policies.
William Foster, director of CEDIT and professor at the Faculty of Agronomy and Forest Engineering, details that the study of development must go beyond economic variables or the mere geographical configuration of the territories. For this reason, he explains that social, cultural, environmental and governance dimensions must be included in order to understand the complexities of each territory.
“The word development encompasses, or contains, the traditional measures of income, employment, and poverty. But it also includes other dimensions of well-being that have received much less attention, for example, the improvement of the natural environment and the preservation of culture in communities. It also includes the advancement of the capacities of communities and families to control their own destinies”, says the academic.
multidimensional look
The new research center seeks to address the issue of sustainable development from different perspectives: innovation and entrepreneurship, gender and ethnic disparities, indigenous peoples, migration, human capital, and community sustainability, among others.
He Co-director of CEDIT and also professor at the Faculty of Agronomy and Forest Engineering, Gustavo Anríquezexplains that the work of the Millennium Nucleus has an interdisciplinary work that allows researchers from different areas to make their experience available.
“Our research proposal is designed to support public policy, and this is an invitation to the public sector, to the different actors that participate in the policy design process, to participate. We have projects underway, such as generating models for prioritizing public investment in the territories, together with the FAO, and we also want to develop the concept of ‘territorial proofing’which in simple words, would be a manual to carry out ex ante evaluations in a simple and simplified way of what is the differentiated impact in the territories of the different public policies”, explains the researcher.
There are five lines of research that seek to offer a multidisciplinary perspective, necessary to contribute to a more egalitarian development of the territories, involving the economic, social, political, environmental and cultural spheres:
1. Land Measurement: its focus is the construction and maintenance of a database of governance, development, geographic, environmental and social indicators.
2. Entrepreneurship and Innovation:addresses the relationship with geographical and territorial characteristics.
3. Social and gender disparities: focuses on the economic characteristics of the household and the role of First Nations and local communities in the different strategies of territorial development and inclusive prosperity.
4. Migration and Human Capital: studies the dynamic links between the spatial mobility of people and the sustainability of communities.
5. Public politics: design, monitoring and evaluation of public policies towards an integral development of the territories.
The territory as a critical component
“We are sure that CEDIT will be a relevant space in Chile for the generation and dissemination of new knowledge of borders linked to the different elements and interrelationships that make up territorial systems. We also hope that it will become a highly attractive Nucleus for young scientists to choose it as their place of training, thus contributing to the sustainable development of Chile based on quality scientific research”.
So stated the head(s) of the Millennium Department and Scientific Border Initiatives of ANID, Mauricio Maldonadoduring the official launching ceremony of CEDIT, held on June 9 at the UC Extension Center.
“The territorial dimension is critical”highlighted for his part the Vice Chancellor for Research at the Catholic University, Pedro Bouchon. “We cannot pretend to establish a route for the development of hydrogen, green mining or solar development, if we do not understand that we have to work with communities on this, we have to produce an adaptation, we must understand the effect that it will produce in The habitat. That is why I think it is so important that we are able to position these types of initiatives in the different areas of discussion”, he added.
for his part Rodrigo Sfeir, Vice Chancellor for Research and Technological Development at the Universidad Católica del Norte (UCN)expressed that “through this project we hope that innovative, rigorous research will emerge, which can generate answers to current challenges, which will be able to provide the tools for the design and implementation of public policies that are effective, fair and with territorial relevance”.
Also, the Director of Research and Technology Transfer of the Universidad Mayor, Sebastián Abadesadded that “I am very happy that it is a consortium of universities that are extremely aligned in what they want to achieve, it is a complex exercise, extremely difficult to tackle, therefore I am sure that the researchers, who are first-rate, not only They are not going to contribute with frontier research, but they will make an effort to transmit this to society in a concrete way”.
The ceremony also included the participation of a panel made up of the Social Development Seremi of Antofagasta, Berta Torrejón; the deputy director of the Office of Agrarian Studies and Policies (ODEPA), Daniela Acuña; and the head of Studies and Territorial Analysis of SUBDERE, Juan Alcayaga.
The Millennium Nucleus for the Comprehensive Development of the Territories is led by UC professors William Foster and Gustavo Anríquez, and is hosted by the Catholic University of Chile, the Northern Catholic University and the Mayor University. In addition, it has researchers from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and the University of Reading in Great Britain.
