Explore our subprojects

This subproject advances inclusive and culturally responsive education for MUR children in Ecuador’s Imbabura province, particularly addressing structural inequalities that limit educational access for girls and Indigenous youth.

Through the Inclusive Education Hub (IEduH), this subproject  promotes innovative, participatory, and culturally grounded teaching. By co-developing intercultural curricula with teachers, students, and community leaders, and integrating saberes ancestrales and Kichwa language, the project connects academic learning with cultural revitalization.

Future teachers trained at UTN will act as agents of change, fostering gender equity, cultural identity, and experiential learning methodologies. The IEduH will serve as a collaborative platform for research, training, and pedagogical innovation ensuring education values Indigenous knowledge while preparing students for contemporary challenges.

This subproject restores environmental stewardship to the Karanki and Kayambi communities in Imbabura, empowering them to sustainably manage their living environment and ancestral lands.. These highland communities (2,300–3,000 m) depend on water from the Páramo ecosystems above 3,000 m. However, climate change, deforestation, and the replacement of native crops and vegetation have triggered soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity in the Itambi river basin. 

In response, this subproject revitalizes ancestral land management practices to strengthen resilience against environmental degradation. Working collaboratively with Universidad Técnica del Norte (UTN), local communities, and women leaders, the initiative combines scientific research and saberes ancestrales to co-create sustainable land, water, and biodiversity management solutions.

The Sustainable Environment Hub  equipped with laboratories for water, soil, and biodiversity analysis, and a real-time environmental monitoring network, will provide evidence for the ecological and socio-economic benefits of ancestral practices.

This subproject improves well-being and quality of life in MUR communities by transforming healthcare delivery to be culturally safe, person-centered and preventive. High rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and respiratory illnesses—demand culturally appropriate healthcare responses. Yet access remains severely limited due to inadequate infrastructure, insufficient healthcare professionals, and poor integration between ancestral medicine and contemporary healthcare systems. Mutual mistrust, linguistic barriers, and stigmatization of traditional healing practices further deepen this divide.

The project bridges these gaps by integrating scientific and ancestral health practices to deliver preventive, person-centered, and culturally respectful care. The Person-Centred Healthcare Hub (PCHH), hosted by Universidad Técnica del Norte (UTN), serves as a collaborative space where academic staff, students, healthcare professionals, local healers, and community health promoters work together to co-create best practices, positioning traditional healers as essential partners in community health.

Educational programs at UTN embed saberes ancestrales into health curricula, ensuring future healthcare professionals deliver care that values both scientific evidence and traditional wisdom. This integrated approach enhances disease prevention, trust and access to care, and creates strong linkages with other subprojects addressing nutrition, education, environment, and inclusive economy.

This subproject strengthens economic resilience and social capital in the Karanki and Kayambi MUR communities of Imbabura, with explicit focus on empowering women's economic leadership. These communities rely on small-scale farming, livestock rearing, handicrafts, and informal trade, yet limited market access, weak organizational structures, and insufficient institutional support constrain their economic potential.

Structured around agriculture and goods manufacturing, the project revitalizes ancestral  practices—including the chakra (traditional Andean farming system), crop residue utilization, and cultivation of nutritious native crops—while integrating contemporary sustainable techniques. Women establish production associations and enterprises, strengthening their negotiating power, diversifying household income, and expanding their participation in community decision-making.

The Inclusive Economy Hub (IEH) serves as a collaborative space fostering co-creation between academic staff, community members, and local entrepreneurs while enhancing UTN's capacity for interdisciplinary research and long-term revenue-generating projects. Collaboration with other subprojects ensures synergy with nutrition, education, environment, and technology transfer initiatives, while emphasizing integrated approaches to water management, soil fertility, and biodiversity conservation.

This subproject reduces chronic malnutrition and enhances health and developmental outcomes for children in the Karanki and Kayambi communities of Imbabura. Malnutrition poses a critical challenge: 37.9% of Indigenous children in Ecuador experience chronic malnutrition (INEC, 2024), driven by Westernized diets, geographic isolation, maternal labor demands, decline of ancestral agriculture, and limited nutritional knowledge.

The project implements a holistic, culturally respectful strategy combining scientific research, community-driven interventions, and nutritional innovation. UTN assesses children's nutritional status, cardiovascular health, and cognitive, physical, motor, and academic development, while analyzing the nutritional value, safety, and efficacy of ancestral foods.

Through the Nutrition Hub, MUR communities co-create solutions including culturally relevant nutritional products and education programs for mothers, caregivers, educators, and community leaders. UTN strengthens its research capacity through upgraded laboratory facilities, interdisciplinary collaboration, and deeper community engagement.

The subproject links closely with other subprojects: Inclusive Education integrates nutrition programs into curricula, Person-Centred Healthcare supports health monitoring systems, and Inclusive Economy and Environmental Sustainability guide development of food products rooted in local agricultural systems and traditional knowledge.

This transversal subproject demarginalizes the Karanki and Kayambi MUR communities by revitalizing, revalorizing, and integrating their ancestral knowledge into research, education, and policy frameworks. Serving as a foundational pillar across all subprojects, this initiative ensures that saberes ancestrales function as active, living knowledge systems rather than static cultural heritage, and that communities maintain control over research priorities, data ownership, political representation, land rights, and the rights of women and children.

The Saberes Ancestrales Hub (SAH), established within the Kawsay Living Lab, promotes sustainable development through stakeholder engagement and creates a scalable model for broader societal adoption of Indigenous knowledge systems.

This subproject responds to persistent marginalization: ethnic discrimination, limited access to health services, education, and markets, youth out-migration, and linguistic and cultural barriers. Simultaneously, the Karanki and Kayambi communities possess robust collective knowledge and resilience forged through historical resistance, making saberes ancestrales a strategic lever for empowerment.

By connecting all academic subprojects—education, health, nutrition, environment, and inclusive economy—this transversal initiative ensures programmatic coherence, gender equity, and active women's leadership. UTN acts as catalyst and bridge, researching, validating, and teaching traditional practices (including chakra, minga, ayllu, Andean cosmovision, Kichwa language, ancestral medicine, handicrafts, and food preservation) to foster a sustainable, prosperous, and culturally vibrant future.

This transversal subproject positions Universidad Técnica del Norte (UTN) as a Community-Engaged Centre for Transformative Knowledge, recognized (inter)nationally for its collaborative approach Indigenous  communities, inclusive education model, and revalorization of saberes ancestrales. The subproject reinforces UTN's institutional capacity through targeted training, enhanced processes, and strengthened (postgraduate) education, ensuring the university drives socially relevant, gender-sensitive, and culturally grounded innovation.

In education, UTN strengthens existing master's programs and launches new ones in health, agriculture, and applied sciences; trains students in socio-ecological competencies for effective community engagement; improves English and Kichwa language proficiency; and initiates a PhD program with a dedicated doctoral school.

For institutional capacity, the project optimizes governance and operational processes across academic, financial, administrative, and management frameworks to effectively support community-based research and engagement initiatives.

In research, UTN develops an institution-wide research agenda with clear targets for peer-reviewed publications, dedicated research time, and a strengthened research office to enhance competitive external funding applications and research quality.

Outreach activities leverage UTN's media platforms to promote intercultural dialogue, strengthen alumni networks, deliver community workshops and training programs, and establish a technology and knowledge transfer office to facilitate practical application of research findings.

Central to this subproject is the Kawsay Living Lab (KLL), which fosters n-tuple helix collaboration among university, community, government, civil society, and private sector partners for participatory research, knowledge exchange, and co-creation.

By integrating scientific research with saberes ancestrales, UTN becomes a national and international benchmark institution for inclusive, community-engaged research. Staff, students, and community partners co-develop evidence-based solutions to local challenges, enhancing well-being, fostering cultural preservation, and driving sustainable development in MUR communities throughout the region.