EDITORIAL

This year, our Saint Thomas University was given the multi-field institutional accreditation for six years. This fills us with joy, since it is an indication of a commitment to quality in our institution, and it is clear that what the future holds for the academic and administrative communities is a set of challenges for reaccreditation.

Amongst the indicators examined in order to reach this goal, the visibility of the growing knowledge produced by the University is very relevant. We now know how important it is to invest in several factors: a) the upkeep and improvement of physical infrastructure (laboratories and such); b) the academic human resources, with doctoral training, conditions to conduct research, and incentive systems that increase their productivity; c) the efficiency of administrative resources, in order to maintain quality and output; d) knowledge infrastructures such as databases and other bibliographic resources; e) visibility, starting with investing in our journals, which are channels of trust and dialogue amongst research communities - naturally not to make them places of endogamic knowledge where only our researchers publish, but to turn them into a means of establishing dialogues with the world. This visibility also involves fostering that our researchers publish in international, high-quality journals, and that they learn from peer reviewing processes. It is also very important to invest in actions that make knowledge visible in academic events with peers with whom we can talk and networks where our knowledge can circulate. We need our researchers to build new networks or participate in existing ones, since only researchers within these knowledge networks can do top-quality research and create an impact on society.

Participation in academic, professional, and social networks is critical in that they serve different functions: academic networks seek exchanges in the frontiers of knowledge; professional networks aim to create an impact on the professional world, in order for that training and professional action can be offered; and then we can participate in the social debates that are critical to the development of our country.

We now have enough information showing that these spaces are connected and that institutions need to have strategies oriented toward knowledge visibility that transcend institutional spaces and that allow knowledge produced by the university to impact society. This is one the challenges that we must prioritise.

Maria Constanza Aguilar Bustamante
Editor

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