Enhancing development research and training capacity based on a TLC approach at the Public University of El Alto (Bolivia)

This South Initiative focuses on strengthening the research and training capacity of the Public University of El Alto (UPEA), with the aim to offer 45.000 students from the rural surroundings and city of El Alto higher education that contributes to the development and the enhancement of the quality of life in their communities. To fulfil this social mission, this 2-year project contributes to enhancing UPEA’s research and training capacity to develop Transdisciplinary Learning Communities (TLC) in El Alto, and becoming a full-fledged partner of the Bolivian IUC pro-gramme. The TLC approach is recently introduced in different regions of the country by the IUC programme (2017-2028) “Inclusive Community Development to Improve the Quality of Life in Vulnerable Rural and Urban Regions in Bolivia” of the Universidad Catolica Boliviana (UCB), with the objective to increase community resilience to respond in an integrative way to complex local problems related to social vulnerability, productive devel-opment and climate change. UPEA will support this process by developing 3 TLCs in El Alto. Therefore, staff members of 10 research centres will get training in research skills, transdisciplinary and learning community approaches to build-out these TLCs.