“With our research, we impact the territory”

UCundinamarca News spoke with him about the scope and challenges of the area he manages in the Facatativá extension, which seeks to train professionals with the ability to lead and undertake effective solutions in the management of organizations; with a transdisciplinary, humanistic, innovative and environmental approach.

UCundinamarca News: What is your assessment of the research topic?

Benjamin Andres Manjarres Zarate: The entire Business Administration program in Facatativá has been continuously improving its Science, Technology, and Innovation processes. This has been achieved since the founding of the Cundinamarca Business Development research group in 2011. At that time, we started with ten research professors who initially belonged to the Public Accounting and Business Administration programs.

From that point on, more research projects began to be developed. These initiatives were, to some extent, the result of supervising undergraduate theses starting in 2012. Later, other needs began to emerge, which over time led to the creation of more projects, thereby involving more faculty members in the research process and, consequently, more students as research trainees.

Generation 21st Century Magazine: How are research groups characterized?

UCundinamarca News: In 2014, the Cundinamarca Business Development group obtained category D, as a practically recognized group in Colciencias, and then, from 2019 onwards and in the last two calls we have obtained a categorization in classification C. I can say that at this moment we have a number of eight active teaching researchers, of which one of these is categorized as a junior researcher before Minciencias.

UCundinamarca News: What projects are you developing now?

Benjamin Andres Manjarres Zarate: At this time we are developing several projects, two of which are research initiatives of two of our teachers and researchers, and we are also participating in two other research initiatives of the group members as co-investigators, with other programs, both from the Faculty of Administrative, Economic and Accounting Sciences, as well as with other faculties.

UCundinamarca News: What is your vision regarding research?

Benjamin Andres Manjarres Zarate: We envision projects developed over the next three to five years that will continue to address not only the challenges of business growth but also the emerging technological, social, and sustainability trends impacting our regions. Therefore, we must continue working within a translocal and transmodern framework, focusing on the Western Savannah province of Cundinamarca, which is our area of operation. Ultimately, our goal is to foster a transformation that contributes to social, environmental, and economic sustainability, generating a positive impact across all traditional sectors of the local, regional, and departmental economy.

UCundinamarca News: What is being done to raise the category of research groups?

Benjamin Andres Manjarres Zarate: In accordance with the policies of the Research Directorate, we have assigned managers who essentially act as our guides and advisors throughout this process. Their role is to help us optimize and improve our categorization with Minciencias (the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation) and to ensure that all of us researchers in the group obtain our own categorization. Furthermore, we are making significant contributions to strengthening the research group through the generation of new knowledge, human resource development activities, knowledge dissemination events, and other scientific outputs. These are all developed by each and every one of the faculty members and junior researchers belonging to the Cundinamarca Business Development group.

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