The SuCCESS Project (Strengthening Criminology Teaching Through Cooperation among European and South American Universities) presents the results of the first part of the project, the first main output entitled “Needs analysis and preparing the soil: Analysis of training needs in Criminology and Public Safety in Latin America.”
Its objectives were:
- To deepen the analysis of the needs for the improvement of higher education offers in criminology and public safety.
- To define in each South American university the specific higher education offers in criminology and public safety that will need to be created or improved and at what levels of study.
- Identify the training needs of the academic staff of South American universities in order to create or improve higher education offers in criminology and public security.
- Promote the transfer of knowledge from European universities in the field of criminology and public security to South American universities, through a learning mobility program.
Six Universities from Colombia (Universidad Antonio Nariño, Universidad Santo Tomás), Brazil (Universidade São Paulo, Universidad Minas Federal Minas de Gerai) and Peru (Universidad Católica de San Pablo, Universidad Mayor de San Marcos) participated in this part of the Project.
For this purpose, a triple methodology was used, consisting of questionnaires, nominal groups and a needs justification report, which allowed for a broad collection of information, which later led to very enriching results on the needs analysis.
The questionnaires were completed by 217 professionals, 151 teachers, and 600 pupils. The questionnaires were culturally adapted to the needs of each country. Concerning the nominal groups, 21 nominal groups were carried out, 7 for each Latin American country, with the participation of professionals from different professional fields. About the need’s justification report, this was an instrument that was self-applied by each of the Latin American universities.
Once the data had been compiled and analyzed, the matching strategy was applied, which consisted of establishing a relationship between the needs identified in each of the Latin American universities and the knowledge and educational offer of the European universities in Portugal (Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Universidade do Minho, Universidade do Porto) and Spain (Universidad de Granada, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, Universidad Castilla la Mancha).
The aim was to establish objective and well-founded guidelines on how the mobility plan, which is part of the second work package, should be carried out.
Main results:
The main results obtained throughout the first main output include the following:
From the methodological perspective
- In the first main output a multilevel, comprehensive, and culturally validated empirical methodology has been designed and implemented, capable of providing an adequate response to the objectives set out in WP1 on the detection of training needs in criminology and public safety.
From the perspective of the data collected
- The results allow us to identify in Latin American universities 1) what training needs different groups of criminology and public safety professionals have 2) what training capacities teachers currently have, 3) what institutional needs have been identified and 4) what personal training needs teachers and students have.
- In general, the training needs assessed by the professionals show a low variability within the same institution, all of them being identified as necessary or very necessary. On the other hand, the distribution of training needs is heterogeneous among the different Latin American institutions.
- With respect to the European universities, we can point out that while the self-reported training capacities are similar, the preferences among the training macro-categories are heterogeneous, which will help in the development of the mobility plan.
From the perspective of the development of the mobilities plan
- The methodology designed and implemented in the first main output to assess the degree of fit between the training needs of Latin universities and the training capacities of European universities is adequate to standardize the mobilities plan system.
- By adjusting to the third and fourth quartile of training needs of each Latin institution, the proposed matching system allows homogeneous participation of Latin partners in all European institutions.
- Additional criteria (e.g. multiple-preference status, language, etc.) will need to be agreed upon among all partners to resolve tie situations.
These activities were led by the project’s partner UMH (Miguel Hernández University)
