Comillas, winner of the 14th Corresposables Awards

Comillas Pontifical University has won the 14th Corresponsables Awards presented by the Fundación Corresponsables each year, for three different but fundamental projects for the identity of the university: the Doctoral Students' Workshop, the Learning and Service course and the Integral Ecology and Sustainability Programme.

The award, in which more than 800 candidates from 13 different countries participated, was collected by the vice rector for Academic Strategy, Innovation and Internationalisation, Paloma Bilbao, on behalf of the winning teams, at a ceremony held at the IESE Business School.

The Integral Ecology and Sustainability Programme of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences was launched in the 2018-2019 academic year. Since then, it has managed to implement the use of recycled paper, eliminate the use of plastic cutlery and cups in schools, and the installation of recycling containers and solar panels at the Cantoblanco campus, among other initiatives now awarded by Corresponsables. Heike Pintor, coordinator of the programme, acknowledges that the award "will allow us to make the project visible and continue to raise awareness among students, as well as to exchange our experiences with other academic institutions in Spain and Latin America".

The Doctoral Students Workshop is an initiative of the Iberdrola Chair in Economic and Business Ethics, and provides twelve doctoral students in business ethics, CSR and sustainability with the opportunity to present their work and receive feedback from other doctoral students and members of a scientific committee made up of doctors in the field. The workshop allows the doctoral students, from Spanish and Portuguese universities, to advance their thesis in the initial and intermediate phases of the thesis.

The Learning and Service course is a compulsory subject in the degree in Business Administration and Management (Comillas ICADE), as well as a methodology of special relevance for Comillas due to its teaching innovation and for promoting university social responsibility. It combines social commitment, comprehensive training, collective reflection and putting this knowledge into practice in social projects. In addition, students work on real cases for third sector organisations. Carlos Ballesteros, lecturer and head of the ICADE Business Social Consultancy, values the work carried out in the course as "a project that has allowed all the students to put their knowledge and skills at the service of society in a service-learning project".