Strategic Integration of Social Responsibility

strategic integration of social responsibility

1 STRATEGIC INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

The idea of the social responsibility and university sustainability has passed its initial conception, which was more restricted as philanthropy or university extension, in order to go on to a transverse, plural, progressive and multidimensional commitment referring both to the overall activities of the university and its social outreach. It is also strategic incorporating the social responsibility and university sustainability in a transverse way, thereby promoting further coordination of the various policies that coexist in this broad field and its recognition and visibility.

The USC's commitment to achieve this integration is clear. On the one hand, the Vice- Rectorship for Social Responsibility and Quality aims to coordinate all social and environmental policies that are developed at the USC to achieve a much deeper and stronger insight into social responsibility through the organisation and to make sure that all actions are carried out according to a coherent and unified framework. On the other hand, the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan of the USC integrates social responsibility into the overall strategy of the institution, becoming the framework under which we assume an explicit commitment to the creation of social, environmental and economic value, as well as dialogue, transparency and accountability for all members of the university community and society. So, this Strategic Plan articulates the social responsibility of the USC as an essential part that, besides its specific importance, affects and spreads to the rest of the central issues specified in the plan, with the aim of making social responsibility a strategic tool to give greater coordination and coherence to initiatives and projects already developed in our institution, and thus facilitates the maintenance of an open and continuous dialogue with all our stakeholders.

This Strategic Plan integrates the principles of the socially responsible management of the USC and it considers the expectations of all our stakeholders, enabling us to develop the internal, intermediate and external dimensions of our social responsibility, in which we distinguish seven specific areas of action:

- Good governance and transparency.

- Human capital management.

- Social knowledge management.

- Relationships with organisations.

- University extension and volunteering.

- Internal Ecology.

- Sustainable Development.

AREAS OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AT THE USC

INTERNAL DIMENSION Good Governance & Transparency Human Capital Management Internal Ecology Democratic government; Education; equality; Sustainable Development Plan; organisational structure; conciliation; safety and health; environmental management ombudsman; quality and social benefits; international axis (energy, mobility, water, efficient management; mobility of staff. waste, ecological footprint...). accountability and transparency.

Social Management of Knowledge Relevance and quality of teaching and research; knowledge transfer; cross-disciplinary training; academic and economic support: employment; promotion of entrepreneurship; international student mobility; research capacity; Campus Vida; academic and research results.

University Extension and Relationships with organisations Sustainable Development Volunteering Foreign promotion and Sustainable Development Plan: Volunteering; social internationalization; suppliers; areas of training, participation and promotion; companies and institutions; environmental awareness and cultural activities; sports professorships; ‘The bridge’ disclosure. USC in transition, service; training in values. program; Public Administration International cooperation EXTERNAL DIMENSION

In the framework of this model of social responsibility and our Strategic Plan, our primary objective is to create value for the whole society. But the value we create with our work is far from being able to be measured in financial or economic terms to be reflected in our accounts and our budgets. Furthermore, this is to a great extent an intangible value, difficult or even impossible to measure in quantitative terms.

Even so, in an effort to try to quantify the economic value generated by our activities, regardless of our budget and assets, we have estimated with an indicator our impact on the Galician economy. Taking into account the direct and indirect economic impacts of our institution on the cities where their campuses are located and which derive from the investment and consumption expenditure of the members of the university community (staff and students) in the rest of the sectors of the economy, the average output generated in 2012 by the USC was about 0.56% of the output generated by the Galician economy. This percentage may be increased by adding the multiplier effect of demand on other sectors of the economy.

ECONOMIC VALUE GENERATED BY THE USC IN 2012

1. USC investment: Ordinary investment expenses, not including new buildings or staff. Chap. VI. Research. 31,025,326 €

2. Consumption of the USC Staff expenses of the USC 164,217,440 € staff: the hypothesis is that x x the consumption derived from Propensity to consumption of 1 that income form part of the the USC staff x demand associated with the X 91.80% university activity. The wage Average household item was taken and it was consumption applied the marginal of the total disposable income propensity to consume. 150,751,610 €

3. Consumption of students of Students of Santiago and Lugo 6,632 1st and 2nd cycle: it refers to x the cost incurred by the x 3,737 € student at the USC, based on 24,783,834 € an estimate of consumption Consumption estimation per made by the students in student (Euros) Santiago de Compostela and Lugo, including tuition, materials, travel, + accommodation, meals and Students from outside Santiago 18,004 leisure. Area of influence of and Lugo x Santiago: Santiago, Touro, 5,944 € Boqueixon, Vedra, Teo, Ames, x 107,008,774 € Negreira, Val do Dubra, Stroke, Oroso, O Pino, Brion. Area of Consumption estimation per influence of Lugo: Lugo, student (Euros) Outeiro de Rei, Castroverde, Friol, Guntín, O corgo. 131,792.,08 €

313,569,543 € Output from the USC (1+2+3) 4. Output from the USC regarding the Galician economy: it indicates the 56,374,462,000 € impact of the USC activity on Galician GDP (base year 2008) the Galician economy. 0.56%

But it is clear that the information gathered in one indicator can hardly account for the size and scope of our activity and for the various factors that determine and affect it.

In 2012 our management was marked by the need to comply with a new regulatory context which extremely limited our autonomy and funding. We had to compete in a very demanding and globalised environment that required us to be more efficient and do more with less. Therefore, the management of the institution had to be directed towards the restructuring of processes and services in the pursuit of this greater efficiency and greater contribution to a high quality teaching and research. We have to highlight in this line the advances in e-Government, the reorganisation of some services (University Information Office, Postgraduate Centre and the Area of Valorisation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship), the improvement of academic

(Xescampus) and economic (eSicus) management tools, as well as the information management tools (implementation of DataWarehouse and design of an institutional data and statistics system) and the improvement of the administration contracting procedures and the progress in the implementation of cost accounting.

The USC has two campuses located in two Galician cities that are world heritage: Santiago de Compostela and Lugo. In these two campuses studied during 2011-12 a total of 31,006 students in all the types of offered studies. The students could choose from 63 official first and second cycle degrees, which are all of them in the process of extinction; 48 EHEA degrees; 73 official masters and 22 masters of the university; and 22 specialised courses. To all these courses are added three own degrees and the third and fourth cycle. There was a decline in enrollment in all degree programmes, except in the own degrees and the in fourth cycle, despite the fact that the number of students enrolled in the USC places it among the largest Spanish public universities.

About 63% of all students at the USC are women, making us a university with a higher percentage of women in the different groups of the university community than the rest of the state.

In 2012 the foreign promotion of the USC received a special boost, intensifying recruitment activities in other countries and reaching new agreements with 50 foreign universities. Within the mobility programs during 2011-12 more than 829 USC students developed their studies at universities in the EU, Latin America or other Spanish universities, while the USC received a total of 1,161 foreigners. At the beginning of the year 2012-13 , the university received more than 90 Brazilian and as many Chinese students who attended the USC to study in the Polytechnic Superior School and in the Faculty of Science in Lugo or in the Faculty of Philology in Santiago. In addition, the university led several cooperation projects funded by the Ministry and it obtained five new EM-ECW projects (Erasmus Mundus-External Cooperation Window) with Latin America and Central Asia.

The teaching activities were already fully developed in the context of the new degrees adapted to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), which has been very taxing both for teachers and students. Academic results show an improvement in both success and performance rates of the students and its satisfaction and the teachers’ satisfaction with teaching. We have continued to focus on the quality of teaching and of the support services by the renewal of the ISO 9001 certification of the academic management services, the obtaining of the verification certificates of the Internal Quality Assurance Systems (in Spanish, SGIC) of all the teaching centres and, in the case of doctoral programmes, the applicability in 2011-12 of 6 quality mentions and 18 citations for excellence. Furthermore, we completed the migration of the Virtual Campus of the USC to free software, advancing in other applications and uses of ICT in teaching.

In 2012 it was made an effort to keep academic and economic support programmes to students (tutorial support, improvement of library and ICT services, 939 subsidised places in the SUR [University Residence Halls] for about 1.5 million Euros, 20 students

with special needs catered for in the SEPIU), and to promote their employment by signing new internship agreements with entities and by developing employment- oriented activities (1,367 guidance interviews, practice through the Social Council, Feuga and other agreements) .

In terms of our human capital, in late 2012 the USC had 2,130 teaching and research staff members (in Spanish, PDI), while the administration and service staff members (in Spanish, PAS) were 1,213, and the presence of women in all the staff stood at 46.2%. The stabilisation and promotion processes of the staff members, as well as their pay conditions were severely affected by the new national and regional regulations. The USC tried to exploit all appropriate avenues of negotiation. Despite the budgetary constraints, the USC continued to promote among its staff equal opportunities and tried to provide the best working conditions, improving their training (68 courses for PAS and over 80 for the PDI were developed in 2011-12 in their respective training programmes), ensuring their safety and health at work (through the Risk Prevention Service, the Health Surveillance Service and the implementation of the OHSAS 18001 system in various centres, including the Technical Engineering School [ETSE] which reached the certification in 2012) and contributing with various social benefits (90 vacancies in the Breogán Infant School, 38,575 Euros for the so-called ‘baby cheque’ in Lugo).

With respect to research, external resources raised for R&D are being reduced as a result of the economic crisis and the cuts in public budgets for research. Nonetheless, the USC is still among the 400 universities in the world with the greatest capacity for generating knowledge, as it is evidenced by several international rankings (Leiden Ranking, URAP and Ranking Web of Universities, among others).

In 2012, as a result of the cuts and the increased demands of the EHEA, it decreased the percentage of PDIs involved in R&D, despite the increase in the doctor PDI and the improvement in the recognition of the six-year period of professors, lecturers and associate professors. 298 dissertations were read, but it was reduced the number of staff members taken on for R&D activities and human resource programmes related to R&D due to the cancellation of many international, national and regional calls. However, it was got almost 35 million Euros in competitive calls (8.3% more than in 2011) and the USC researchers obtained by means of contracts, reports and services nearly 9 million Euros.

The Campus of International Excellence (in Spanish, CEI) Campus Vida was recognised in late 2011 as a CEI of global reference, which reached in 2012 the highest qualification for its progress report. It has continued to develop its strategic plan, making progress in the consolidation of the International Doctoral School and in the commissioning of the CIMUS and CITIUS and the start of the construction of the CEBEGA. The research structure of the USC was also reinforced in 2012 with the creation of an own centre (the CeRGI) and the integration into the patronage of the CETaqua Galicia.

Campus Vida is present in 15 projects of the 7th Framework Programme approved in 2011 and 2012 that are a fundraising of 8.4 million Euros, and it has won several unique projects of R&D (as Inno-Pharma and Trans-Int). In 2012 it was promoted the UniverCidade strategy and international mobility (training programme for doctors in India and China), among other initiatives, with the grants received in the call 2011 from the CEI enhancing programme.

In the field of knowledge transfer and vaorisation, one of the highlights of 2012 was the launch of the Transfer Accelerator Programme, focused on covering the financing and counselling ‘gap’ between the completion of an academic research and the industry interest in investing in its development. Through this programme were promoted in 2012 9 enhancement projects for an amount exceeding € 275,000. We have also to emphasise the collaboration with other institutions in the field of transfer and valorisation, as the Barrié Fundación, whose Science Investment Fund decided to fund two projects at the USC (one coordinated by the foundation) with more than 400,000 €, or obtaining ERDF funds for the international projects Transfer Vehicles and Nanovalor.

Regarding the management of results, progress was made in streamlining the process of filing patent applications to focus on those that provide true value, so that of the 47 invention communications of 2012 it was limited to 23 the number of priority requests. There were also 52 requests for the international extension of protection. And 36 new patents were obtained (34 in the SPTO and 2 in the USPTO). The report RedOTRI 2011 recognises the USC as the 4th Spanish university with the most priority patent applications and patent portfolio. It also improved the number of signed knowledge transfer agreements (6 with spin-off arising from the USC and another 6 with other companies), and the revenue from licenses was doubled.

In the field of entrepreneurship it is being consolidated the dynamic of spin-off generation (5 formed in 2012 from the 9 qualified as such by the Governing Council) and it is still paid special attention to the promotion of female entrepreneurship through the Woman Emprende programme. The RedOTRI Report 2011 ranks the USC as the 5th Spanish university with the largest number of created spin-offs.

Nevertheless, the current university must not only be legitimised in the modern society in terms of the quality of the service and the achieved academic and research results, but it has also to maintain the confidence of those who associate with it and call for new economic, social and environmental positioning. The university, as an essential element of economic and social development, should direct its activities under social, environmental and economic criteria. And, as an entity that is part of a system of human relations, it should incorporate social responsibility into both the management of relations with society and the management of relations with the university community.

The USC fosters citizenship values such as solidarity, coexistence, tolerance and respect for diversity, in order to contribute to create a fairer society, a culture of peace and ethics based on cooperation and responsibility. So, it understands voluntary

activities (101 in the academic year 2011-12, which involved 260 volunteers) as a fundamental part of the training of the people, because they allow the university community to become integrated into the social reality through its collaboration in the different programmes offered by social action organisations. On the other hand, the USC offers the society the possibility to know its rich historical and natural heritage, working for their preservation and the dissemination of culture and knowledge, and it promotes all kinds of cultural and sports activities (116 initiatives in 2012 ), addressed to the whole society.

It is also important to highlight the USC's commitment to the sustainable development. Through its Sustainable Development Plan, coordinated by the Office of Sustainable Development, and the programme USC in Transition (USC en Transición), the university organises multiple activities of research, training, awareness and environmental information. It is also managed through these programmes the environmental impact of the USC (showing in 2012 a reduction of 5.1% in the electricity consumption, 21.9% in the natural gas consumption, 1.4% in the volume of generated hazardous waste or 8.3% in the CO2 emissions associated with the energy consumption).

In the framework of the USC in Transition programme were organised two training activities for the teaching and research staff members and carried out awareness and participation activities related to waste management, mobility, community gardens (in late 2012 it was launched the urban garden project at the USC), renewable energy and healthy eating, which where attended by a large number of people: academic staff students and administrative staff. In these activities also collaborated 27 fellows from the SPIU programme and 9 from USC in Transition.

Thus, we have drawn a much richer and more complete reality of the USC than the one only limited to assess its financial accounts and the results of the teaching and research activity. The latter were excellent. But what really brings us closer to excellence is being able to give back to society more than we receive from it, which is an aim in which we put all our efforts.

In the following sections of this report we will describe in more detail our progress in meeting our strategic objectives through our social responsibility model in the year 2012 and the academic year 2011-12.