About FLACSO

FLACSO: an international organization

The Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales is an international organization with regional and autonomous capacities. It is constituted by the states of Latin America and the Caribbean. FLACSO was founded in 1957 with the sponsorship of UNESCO to promote learning, research and cooperation in the social sciences throughout the continent.  In addition to its Regional Administrative Departments, the General Executive Secretary is located in Costa Rica. FLACSO is also organized in ten academic branches or divisions, which are located in: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Dominican Republic.

FLACSO:  Academic Branch Costa Rica
After six years as a Program, the academic branch FLACSO-Costa Rica was finally created in the year 1997. Although the location of this branch is in Costa Rica, the range and scope of its research, teaching, cooperation, and dissemination seeks a regional orientation.

The duties of FLACSO - Costa Rica

  • Conduct excellent academic research on social, political, economic and environmental issues to assist the definition of public policy.
  • Ensure the formation of human resources in the social sciences through doctorate and specialization courses.  
  • Cooperate with universities, national governments, local and international nongovernmental organizations, to promote the development of the social sciences
  • Disseminate the diverse advances in the social sciences with a special emphasis on the results obtained from the research at FLACSO   
  • Promote the exchange of educational materials in the social sciences within Latin America
  • Offer technical assistance to national governments, multilateral organizations and civil society  

International Cooperation and Strategic Alliances
The activities of FLACSO Costa Rica promote the exchange and comparative study of the experiences and conditions of social development in different places. These experiences and conditions reveal the realities and efforts of developing societies. International cooperation opens diverse academic opportunities, including research, instruction, and debate about the experiences of social development in Latin America and beyond. Strategic alliances constitute a working mechanism of FLACSO-Costa Rica, which privileges cooperation with the organizations of FLACSO in the region, governmental institutions, NGOs, the private sector, and the academic branches in the hemisphere and throughout the world. The cooperation with universities from the northern hemisphere is important for the development of joint programs in research and education.

FOCUS AREAS

FLACSO Costa Rica develops regularly activities for education, professional enhancement, research and dissemination that revolve around eight focus areas. Every institutional activity seeks to incorporate analytical frameworks that are gender and ethnically conscious.