Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO)

The Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) is an international non-governmental institution with associative status in UNESCO, created in 1967.

The 10 objectives of CLACSO:

• Promote social research to combat poverty and inequality, strengthen human rights and democratic participation.
• Contribute, from the contributions of academic research and critical thinking, to promoting sustainable development policies in economic, social and environmental terms.
• Build bridges between social research and public policies, promoting innovative, creative and viable actions in the face of the great social, educational, cultural and environmental challenges of Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Support the formation of networks of researchers and institutions that operate in the field of social sciences and humanities.
• Strengthen academic internationalization processes in Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Expand South-South and North-South academic cooperation and dialogue.
• Stimulate the development and consolidation of social sciences and critical thinking in the poorest countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Intervene in the national and regional public debate, providing the perspectives and contributions of results-based social research.
• Collaborate with the training of government agents, social activists and press professionals in social, educational, cultural and environmental issues, bringing them closer to problems addressed from the social sciences and the evidence that social research provides.
• Generate conditions of open access to Latin American and Caribbean academic production, contributing to the democratization of access to knowledge and allowing its more active use by public policy managers, social and citizen organizations, the press and the university system itself.

The 10 central axes of CLACSO:

• Reduction of inequalities and social injustice.
• Fight racism, ethnic and gender discrimination.
• Guarantees and legal protection in migration and human mobility processes.
• Defense of public education and expansion of the right to quality education for all.
• Contribution to the development of peace processes.
• Promotion of open access and the democratization of knowledge.
• Promotion of citizen security policies and combating violence.
• Promotion of the rights of children and youth.
• Promotion of participation, citizen mobilization and strengthening of democracy.
• Promotion of economic, social and environmentally sustainable development policies.

Since 2022, CLACSO launched the Platforms for Social Dialogue (PDS) initiative. Its objective is to achieve the production of knowledge based on evidence, critical, situated, and with a high impact on the definition of policies, the formation of public opinion, and the positive transformation of the living conditions of the most impoverished, oppressed, and discriminated populations.

The Platforms for Social Dialogue are a collaborative and multi-stakeholder workspace implemented to promote exchanges, influence priority social issues, and contribute to the construction of common regional agendas.

The PDS will address eight strategic axes:

1. Inequalities and poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean
2. Democracy, human rights, and peace
3. Social movements and activism in Latin America and the Caribbean
4. Rights, violence, and gender equality
5. Environment, climate change, and social development
6. Migrations and human mobility
7. Reconfigurations of work in today’s world.
8. Right to education, public policies, and pedagogical alternatives (Higher Education)