Presentation

The Salesian Polytechnic University (UPS – Ecuador), as the organizing institution; the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO Ecuador) and the Private Technical University of Loja (UTPL), as co-organizing institutions; in conjunction with the Network of Communication Researchers (RISE) and the research groups GICODEPO, GICEA, and GIDITECI, invite the national and international academic community to participate in the 1st International Interdisciplinary Congress of Social Sciences (CIICIS) 2026. The event will be held in a hybrid format on November 11, 12, and 13, 2026, at the Salesian Polytechnic University, Quito campus – Ecuador, and will also include the institutional participation of Don Bosco University of El Salvador, Salesian University of Mexico, and the Juan XXIII Higher Institute of Argentina, thus consolidating a Latin American and international network of interdisciplinary research.

CICIIS 2026 is the first edition of the International Interdisciplinary Congress of Social Sciences.

The congress was created as a new international academic initiative aimed at strengthening interdisciplinary dialogue between social sciences, communication, technology, governance, culture and digital innovation.

Call

Researchers, teachers, students and professionals from different areas are invited to share experiences, build collaborative networks and generate new perspectives on communication, technology, design, governance and other contemporary challenges.
This international congress seeks to strengthen the exchange of knowledge between institutions and academic communities in Latin America and the world, promoting critical debates and innovative proposals to address current global problems.
The CICIIS 2026 has two participation options:
Academic articles
Open call until August 1st.
International panels
Open call until May 30.

About UPS

The Salesian presence in Ecuador has been a social reality since January 1888, as a response to the agreement signed by Don Bosco and the representative of the Government of Ecuador in Turin (Italy) in 1887, by which the Catholic Protectorate of Arts and Crafts of Quito was entrusted to the Salesians, so that they would "impart moral and scientific education to the children of the people and for the development of national industry through a systematic teaching of crafts."

Very soon, the Salesians' evangelical and educational work spread to other cities in Ecuador, notably the founding of missions in the Ecuadorian Amazon, such as Gualaquiza (1893), Indanza (1914), Méndez (1915), Macas (1924), Sucúa (1931), and Limón (1936). Educational institutions were also established, such as those in Quito (1888) with arts and crafts workshops in the Catholic Protectorate; in Riobamba (1881), a primary school, workshops, and a youth center were founded; and in Cuenca (1893), workshops and a youth center were also established.

In Quito, in the La Tola neighborhood (1896), mechanics and carpentry workshops, a primary school, and a church dedicated to Mary Help of Christians were opened; Guayaquil (1904) saw the first foundation with the Domingo Santistevan Institute for orphaned children, sponsored by the Board of Charity. In the Centenario neighborhood of the same city, the Cristóbal Colón School was founded (1911) for the humanistic education of Guayaquil's youth; in Manabí (1927), the Salesians received the Rocafuerte Parish, where a primary school and a youth center were also opened.

Since 1888, educational and apostolic works have been multiplying throughout Ecuador, inserting themselves into the various social groups in order to respond to the needs of young people, especially the poorest, through a quality education based on the Preventive System and inspired by the values ​​of the Gospel, with the aim of forming "honest citizens and good Christians".

Today, the Salesians of Ecuador are around 200 brothers, distributed in 27 communities in the coast, highlands and Amazon.

The Salesian presence in the university field is relatively new, except for the educational experiences in India in 1934 and the Pontifical Salesian University in Turin, which has been training Salesians in higher education since 1940, initially as the Pontifical Salesian Athenaeum and since 1973 as a University based in Rome.

Currently there are 35 Salesian Provinces with responsibility for Higher Education, which implies a high and sustained growth of the Salesian university offering in the world.

The new demands of Youth Ministry led the Salesian Society to open itself to the upper stratum of youth, determined by a principle of educational continuity that requires an extension of educational accompaniment beyond the period of adolescence and with a desire to offer an opportunity of access to the University to many young people in inferior economic and social conditions and as a privileged place for vocational guidance in the broad and specific sense.

The Salesian Polytechnic University (UPS) was created by Law No. 63, issued by the National Congress and published in the Official Gazette Supplement No. 499 on August 5, 1994. UPS is a private, non-profit institution, co-financed with state funds, with its own legal personality and responsible autonomy in academic, administrative, financial, and organizational matters. UPS was founded during a very critical period from a social and economic perspective. Once the project to create the University was approved, the Salesian Society of Ecuador began operations at the new Center for Higher Education in October 1994. Prior to this, on September 6, 1994, the first University Council was established, and the Rector and Vice-Rector took office. Its main campus is located in the city of Cuenca, with branch campuses in the cities of Quito and Guayaquil.

The Salesian Polytechnic University (UPS), as a center of higher education, is aware of the major educational problems facing the country, such as:

 

  • The need to train a well-rounded professional who is scientific, practical, humane, moral, and ethical.
  • The need for the university to connect with society. 
  • The need for science and technology to be part of an integrated world of education. 
  • The need for research to be linked to solving major social problems.

 The objectives of the Salesian Polytechnic University are:   

a) Generate spaces for preferential attention to young people and adults from popular sectors, groups with disabilities, indigenous peoples and Afro-Ecuadorians. 

b) Generate spaces for preferential attention to young people and adults from popular sectors, groups with disabilities, indigenous peoples and Afro-Ecuadorians. 

c) Implement processes that ensure co-governance and gender parity in the university management system. 

d) To promote a Pastoral Educational Proposal as a suitable space for dialogue between Reason, Faith and Culture. 

e) Promote student-centered learning models, guided by the principles of Salesian education. 

f) To offer third and fourth level academic programs, approved by the Council of Higher Education, for continuing education, community engagement and research processes, cultural dissemination and respect for the environment, with high quality standards to respond to the needs and problems of Ecuadorian society. 

g) Guarantee freedom of conscience, freedom of teaching, academic freedom and thought, equal opportunities and non-discrimination. 

h) Design academic curricula that do not involve the incorporation of subjects intended for mandatory religious indoctrination.

For the past 20 years, Salesian universities have been emerging rapidly across different continents, each with its own distinct characteristics. It was then that Don Bosco's eighth successor, Don Juan Edmundo Vecchi Monti (1995-2002), emphasized the need for the General Directorate of the Salesian Congregation to accompany and guide these newly developing university institutions. Following this development and after several meetings worldwide, on January 7, 2003, the Rector Major of the Salesians, Don Pascual Chávez Villanueva, and his Council, in plenary session, unanimously approved the documents "Identity of Salesian Institutions of Higher Education" and "Policies for the Salesian Presence in Higher Education." These documents now serve as the Congregation's roadmap for these institutions and are integral to the projects of the Salesian Provinces in the various countries where the Salesians are present. Thus, looking to the future, the IUS find in these two documents instruments of direction and governance regarding the definition of the Salesian character of these works, the description of the fundamental lines, the identification of the new goals and objectives that must be achieved; in such a way that the Salesian Congregation will certainly build firmly within the university sphere an educational tradition that has already begun.