Ecuadorian universities show uneven public records of sustainability co-creation

A documentary audit of Ecuadorian higher education has found that publicly available records of university co-creation and collaborative governance for sustainability vary widely across institutions, with only a subset of universities leaving enough verifiable documentary evidence to be analyzed in depth. The study, conducted by researchers at the Salesian Polytechnic University in Cuenca and the Central University of Ecuador in Quito, examined what institutional portals actually reveal about how universities work with external actors on sustainability, rather than relying on surveys or self-reported claims. The audit's central finding is one of heterogeneity.

Evaluated institutions exhibited markedly different institutional records regarding their engagement and sustainability initiatives. Some portals documented multi-actor coordination, governance arrangements, and project continuity in detail, while others offered little or no traceable evidence of territorial articulation beyond conventional university extension activities. Because the evidence base was uneven, the researchers selected five documentary cases for detailed analysis based on information availability, and retained additional candidate cases under a sensitivity analysis coded as "Not Assessable" (NA).

The publicly documented cases showed varying degrees of participation, coordination among multiple actors, dialogue between knowledge systems, formal governance arrangements, documented results, and continuity of projects over time. Crucially, the authors interpret these patterns as documentary traceability rather than as direct evidence that co-creation practices were fully implemented or effective on the ground. A well-documented initiative on a university portal demonstrates that the institution records and communicates such activity; it does not by itself prove how the collaboration functioned in practice or what outcomes it produced.

This distinction matters for how the study should be read. The findings are strictly restricted to the scope of public documentary visibility and traceability. The method cannot capture collaborations that exist but go undocumented, nor can it verify the quality of what is described in published reports.

What it does provide is a systematic picture of which Ecuadorian universities make their sustainability partnerships externally visible, and which leave citizens, researchers, and policymakers without a public record to examine. The concept of co-creation sits at the heart of the analysis. Co-creation, by contrast, implies forms of territorial articulation in which universities and external partners jointly shape initiatives.

The study asked whether the shift toward such collaborative arrangements is reflected in what universities publish, treating official documentation as a proxy for institutional commitment to collaborative governance for sustainability. The use of NA coding for candidate cases in the sensitivity analysis is a deliberate acknowledgment of the audit's limits: institutions whose portals lacked sufficient verifiable material could not be scored, and excluding them silently would have overstated the sector's overall traceability. By retaining these cases explicitly as not assessable, the study keeps the heterogeneity of the record visible rather than smoothing it away.

The research was received by the journal on June 5, 2026, and accepted on October 7, 2026, and is published as open access under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Its authors, Nina Aguiar and Roberto Sánchez-Montoya of the Communication program at Salesian Polytechnic University and Milena Almeida of the Faculty of Social Communication at the Central University of Ecuador, frame the work within comparative governance, using keywords including collaborative governance, documentary traceability, sustainability, territorial participation, and university co-creation. For higher education policy in Ecuador and comparable contexts, the audit offers a replicable template: a transparent, criteria-based way to assess whether universities' sustainability engagement is publicly traceable.

It also sets a clear boundary on interpretation. The documented cases provide evidence of varying degrees of participation and articulation beyond traditional third-mission activities, but the study does not claim to measure the full implementation or effectiveness of co-creation practices. As the authors note, all claims in the article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations or the publisher.

Subject of Research: Public documentary traceability of university co-creation and collaborative governance for sustainability in Ecuadorian higher education

Article Title: Public traceability of university co-creation and collaborative governance for sustainability. A documentary audit of Ecuadorian higher education

Article References: Aguiar, N., Sánchez-Montoya, R., & Almeida, M. (2026). Public Traceability of University Co-Creation and Collaborative Governance for Sustainability. A Documentary Audit of Ecuadorian Higher Education. Frontiers in Political Science, 8, 1900676. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2026.1900676

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2026.1900676

Keywords: Ecuador, higher education, university co-creation, collaborative governance, sustainability, documentary traceability, territorial participation, university extension, documentary audit, public visibility, Public, traceability