Welcome to the website of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. Here you will find full information or about our infrastructures at the Bilbao and San Sebastian campuses.You will also find up-to-date information about our activities, where you can also participate.

Eduardo J. Ruiz Vieytez
Dean of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences

The Faculty of Social and Human Sciences was officially founded in 2009, established through the merger of 17 academic centres:
 

Mission

The Faculty of Social and Human Sciences is a centre at the University of Deusto whose aim is to contribute to social transformation, inclusion and promotion of justice in collaboration with others, through the comprehensive education of individuals, research and transfer/impact on the various disciplines of the social and human sciences.

In particular, the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences has as its main aims:

• Transmit the knowledge of the social and human sciences, providing individuals with a comprehensive education in those fields so that they can transform society through their respective careers.
• Expand the frontiers of knowledge through research in the various disciplines of the social and human sciences from a responsible, multidisciplinary and critical perspective.
• Help to transform society through lifelong learning and applied research transfer jointly with the social, political and economic stakeholders, both public and private.
• Promote coexistence between cultures or identities in a diverse society, based on a Christian inspiration and the value of inclusion, by incorporating both the dialogue between faith and culture and interreligious dialogue.
• Specifically promote Basque culture, deeply rooted in its local context and yet universal, while maintaining its commitment to our local reality.
• Form a community of people who, by performing their university tasks collaboratively, help to promote human rights and work to achieve justice in the world.

Vision

The Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Deusto is renowned for its academic excellence, its commitment to social justice and its endeavour to transform society through teaching, research and transfer:  

• Being critical of social reality, committed to transforming it in a sustainable way and showing solidarity with disadvantaged groups.
• Being inspired by a committed approach to society, based both on inculturation and universality and on diversity and inclusion.
• Promoting teaching innovation, aimed at providing individuals with solid knowledge and skills so that they can be responsible for their own education.
• Promoting high impact research lines, teams and projects to respond to social challenges.
• Forming an innovative and creative university community, which identifies with the values it promotes and is open to collaboration with other universities and public or private entities.

Values

The values of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences are:

• Trust
• Equality
• Inclusion
• Social justice
• Solidarity
• Sustainability

Trust

Trust is the expectation that the behaviour of all the individuals in an organisation or community should be predictable, honest, transparent and collaborative. Trust is an experience that is developed through interaction with others, and between individuals and the organisations and institutions that structure society.

Associated behaviours:

• Spaces for dialogue that encourage interaction between different individuals to generate trust and prompt collaboration.
• Greater trust to enhance dialogue and collaboration.
• Collaborative and transparent management.

Equality

Equality implies absence of discrimination (legal equality), equality of position (opportunities and resources) and parity (positive action). Equality should not be synonymous with homogeneity or uniformity, nor should the recognition of difference be used as an excuse to justify inequality.

Associated behaviours:

• Integrate the gender perspective into all the processes involving organisation, teaching, research and transfer.
• Improve in managing the work and coexistence environment within the Faculty.
• Introduce positive action measures in response to equal opportunity and equal footing.

Inclusion

Inclusion involves acknowledging and respecting diversity, and promoting involvement and power sharing. Acknowledging in the sense that i all the individuals and groups involved in organisational processes should be enabled to participate on an equal footing, taking into account the diversity of their own idiosyncrasies and avoiding not being sufficiently taken into consideration. Involvement should be understood in the sense that action and responsibility should be equally shared in collective processes.

And power sharing inasmuch as it ensures that individuals and groups that may not be sufficiently cared for, or need to be listened to, can be provided with help.

Associated behaviours:

• Pay special attention to the involvement of individuals and groups from diverse cultural and functional backgrounds, by providing them with means to make it real and effective.
• Shed light on functional and cultural diversity.
• Establish schemes for the integration of individuals and groups from diverse cultural and functional backgrounds.
• Carefully avoid any form of “degrading” treatment.
• Develop a common reflection to identify and address the personal, group and organisational mechanisms that cause exclusion.

Social Justice

Social justice refers to the need to achieve equal sharing of social goods, thus ensuring the dignity of all individuals and social cohesion. Social justice has a two-fold meaning. On the one hand, it is a social life principle that guides both individual action and the Faculty’s action within the university community. On the other hand, it is a characteristic of each person’s way of acting, according to which they are driven by the conviction to always respect the dignity of others.

Associated behaviours:

• Particular attention to human rights, mainly as regards the guarantee of material conditions that allow the exercise of basic freedoms.
• Implement corrective actions to address inequality (both inequality of resources and inequality of recognition)
• Foster collaborative social relationships in which the benefit of a few is based on the expulsion, exclusion, discrimination or insufficient recognition of the dignity of others.

Solidarity

Solidarity is a mandate which requires the community to act on behalf of individuals or groups that are in a vulnerable or disadvantaged situation. Its main aim is to prevent, through collective intervention, unjustified damage from occurring or an already existing damage from being perpetuated. Solidarity is underpinned by the recognition of the common dignity of all people.

Associated behaviours:

• Empathy and closeness towards those who suffer an injustice.
• Ability to analyse an unfair situation (actors involved, levels of responsibility, etc.).
• Perform the activity by avoiding multiplying or sustaining unjust social relations.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a value that refers to the protection of the organisational ecosystem in such a way that the way in which we manage, inhabit and modify it, helps to sustain it over time. Thus, future generations may be offered similar opportunities by the UD's teaching and research staff and administration and services staff and students. The aim is to achieve a balance between internal well-being, the well-being of the society we serve and the generation and fair use of the resources required for it.

Associated behaviours:

• Identify and encourage those behaviours that improve the relationships between the people in the organisation, and between it and its environment.
• Carry out initiatives aimed at protecting our environmental, human and social resources.
• Make sure that our decisions take into account mid-term and long-term opportunities for future generations.
   

The Faculty has its own internal structures, which operate with a significant degree of autonomy:
5 departments with their respective departmental areas, which are in charge of teaching, mainly at an undergraduate level, and research related to the areas of knowledge of these degrees.