Digital reports of the International Congress on Ethics, University and Society

The Ethics Program and the Ethics Group of the University of Azuay together with the University and Citizen Network of Ethics and Bioethics, Ruceb, since 2019 clearly visualized the need to contribute to the celebrations for the commemoration of the Bicentennial of Independence of the city of Cuenca, with the realization of a great event that will summon all university careers so that their work of management, teaching, research and service to society is analyzed from the focal point and transversal axis of ethics. To this end, a series of activities such as research projects and academic events were deployed, the results of which had to be presented at that event.

In February of this year, this initiative was formally presented with the presence of representatives of the four universities that make up the University and Citizen Network of Ethics and Bioethics, Ruceb, University of Cuenca, Catholic University of Cuenca, University of Azuay and Salesian Polytechnic University. The Congress was to be held in October of this year.

In March the pandemic transformed the lives of the inhabitants of the entire planet. This initiative and others in progress were suspended, until society, institutions and individuals resolve their relationship with the new living conditions. We all live and still do, circumstances of pain, loss and devastation. However, despite the crisis, gradually, we rise again impelled by the irreducible human impulse to do and to improve, despite everything. This force common to all humanity, in our case, found channels of action in conducting colloquia on ethics and the different branches of knowledge and professions derived from them.

Just as humanity has always done, we began activities in the new scenario drawn by the devastating virus. As of the third week of May of this year, under the title of Dialogues, we began a new stage that allowed us to convene students, professors, researchers and citizens, so that through the different online communication platforms they have conversations regarding different topics, positioning ethics as its central object of analysis, investigation and deployment of analytical argumentation on that inescapable relationship between morality and action.

Memory: International Congress on Ethics, University and Society