Introduction:

Colombia is one of the countries with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Latin America and the Caribbean. In a health crisis of high intensity, governments cannot work alone, so alliances and collaboration between Government and academia take on a preponderant value.

Objective:

Systematize the experience of the collaborative work carried out between academic actors in the region and the health authorities from the Department of Santander, Colombia in the framework of the health emergency due to COVID-19 during 2020-2021.

Methods:

Based on the systematization of experiences and from the critical social approach, a qualitative approach was carried out with eight key actors from the academic sector and the health authority that actively participated in the alliance. Documentary review and semi-structured interviews were conducted.

Results:

Once the health emergency was declared, two collaborative working groups were quickly formed, one between academia and government actors of the municipality of Bucaramanga and another between academia and departmental government actors; both groups were formed voluntarily but differed in their form of organization. The collaborative and voluntary work provided support to health authorities mainly in the preparation phase to face the pandemic, knowledge translation and dissemination, epidemiological surveillance, and response capacity-building activities.

Conclusions:

The support provided by the collaborative team was very proliferative in activities and interventions; however, difficulties occurred and one of them was that a significant number of their recommendations were not addressed by the health authorities. The difficulties presented are not different from those already reported in other public health emergencies, so it is necessary to continue strengthening the relations between Government-Academia, so that they can proactively draw up an agenda that contributes to overcoming the limitations that are reported in this work.