Social innovation, a venture from University Extension for the regional development

Abstract

Aware of the importance and impact of social innovation in the Colombian and Latin American context as a transformational and development strategy, in order to contribute to the strengthening of university extension in Latin America and the Caribbean, the members of the National University Extension Network and the Latin American Union of University Extension-ULEU have been working in recent years on the impact of one of the modalities of the so-called third function.

In this sense, this paper contains a synthesis of the analyzed during a couple of years, starting from a brief introduction to social innovation, followed by an overview of the panorama in Colombia, Latin America and the Caribbean, to continue with the introduction of some successful practices in the subject and end, as a reflection for readers, with a series of challenges in the field, especially for the Colombian case.