Obreal

At Obreal, lasting change is co-built. Not handed down. Not funded from a distance. Built together across regions, disciplines, and generations.

That's the thinking behind Obreal Programs: two initiatives designed to turn ideas into something that lasts.

The Julio Cotler Program supports emerging researchers tackling the key challenges facing democracies in Latin America. The Youth and Multilingualism AI Incubator brings together students, universities, and organizations to design AI solutions with real social impact.

Swipe to learn more, and visit https://obreal.org/programs-and-activities/

Obreal publica en abierto tres nuevos artículos de investigación sobre democracia, gobernanza y educación en América Latina, producidos en el marco del Programa Julio Cotler 2025.

Entra en https://lnkd.in/eN_BFxpb y descárgate los artículos de la Edición 2025:

🔷 "El reto de legislar en condiciones de minoría: un análisis de las presiones de la oposición y las limitaciones institucionales" de Cristhian Rivera Paredes

🔷 "Las desigualdades en el acceso a la educación rural en Piura y su impacto en la democracia en Perú" de Asucena Anayeli More Mogollon

🔷 "Democracias vaciadas de contenido: neocoupismo, neofascismo y hacia una conceptualización del autoritarismo posdemocrático en América Latina y el Caribe" de Juana Stratta

El Programa Julio Cotler apoya a investigadoras e investigadores emergentes de América Latina que trabajan en la intersección entre democracia, instituciones políticas y desarrollo social. Es un programa impulsado por Obreal en colaboración con el Programa LACLxS de la Johns Hopkins University, el Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, la Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, la Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Político (SAAP) y Asuntos del Sur y con el apoyo de la Generalitat de Catalunya.

Geopolitical fragmentation, trade tensions, global governance uncertainty... where does that leave the multilateral trading system?

This week, Obreal co-organized the conference "International Trade after the Trump 2.0 Shock" in Berlin, together with KDI School of Public Policy and Management and Freie Universität Berlin, bringing scholars and WTO Chairs from four continents together to debate WTO reform, economic security, and the future of multilateralism.

The conference is framed within Obreal's Interregional Dialogue Process, which connects knowledge across different Souths and Norths to co-define agendas and build shared responses to global challenges.

Read more on our website 👉 https://obreal.org/blog/2026/05/28/multilateral-trade-fragmentation-obreal-berlin-2026/

At Obreal, we've spent years building bridges between universities and institutions across regions. Today, that model takes a new shape: the Youth & Multilingualism AI Incubator, where we support AI projects that are responsible, rigorous, and built to matter.

One of our selected projects is by Yaasir Falana: an app that uses artificial intelligence to help small-scale farmers identify and manage crop diseases, with multilingual support and both image and text based diagnosis.

The problem it addresses is concrete: traditional crop disease diagnosis is slow, requires specialist knowledge, and is out of reach for farmers in remote areas. And existing agri-tech is built for large-scale operations.

👉 Swipe left to learn more about the project, developed under Obreal's and the Association of African Universities' AI Incubator

How can universities strengthen their role as development agents?

Ángel Manuel Rafael and Jaume Fortuny tackle this question in our newly published paper, and propose Open Innovation as the answer.

Read it on our website, and leave your comments below! 👉 https://obreal.org/es/blog/2026/05/21/new-publication-open-innovation-and-the-future-of-higher-education/

The Interregional Dialogue Process is gaining momentum: the Barcelona meeting, with representatives from 5 regions, confirms that the process is not only delivering results but also expanding.

Around the table: the African Union Commission, the Pro Tempore Presidency of CELAC (Uruguay), the Association of African Universities, the Association of Arab Universities اتحاد الجامعات العربية, the DAAD, the VLIRUOS, the UNESCO International Research and Training Centre for Rural Education, and CAPES. Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, the Arab world, China. University associations, cooperation agencies, and regional bodies. A diversity of regions and sectors that is, precisely, what the process is all about.

The meeting allowed us to make significant progress. We identified shared priorities for the coming months (science diplomacy, academic mobility, climate change, energy, artificial intelligence, rural cooperation) and we took stock of the results the process has generated so far. With a clear commitment: to produce more, and to do so with more regions, more voices, and more languages involved.

Because interregional cooperation only makes sense when it recognizes the plurality of institutions, academic traditions, and knowledge systems involved. And when regions participate not as recipients of external agendas, but as actors that define priorities, produce knowledge, and build capacities.

More details on the meeting and the next steps of the process on our website: https://obreal.org/blog/2026/05/20/interregional-partners-barcelona-higher-education-cooperation/

En Obreal creemos que las ideas jóvenes son clave para fortalecer la democracia. Los resultados de la convocatoria Julio Cotler 2026 nos dan más razones que nunca para seguir apostando por ello.

Hemos recibido 204 propuestas de jóvenes de 12 países de América Latina, el Caribe, y África. Una participación que nos llena de entusiasmo y que demuestra que estamos ante una generación comprometida con la democracia, con ganas de pensar, proponer y actuar.

A todas las personas que enviaron su propuesta: gracias. Independientemente del resultado, ya formáis parte de esta comunidad creciente de jóvenes comprometidos con la democracia.

Descubre más detalles en el carrusel y mantente atento a nuestras redes para conocer los próximos pasos. 👇

El programa Julio Cotler está impulsado por Obreal en colaboración con el Programa LACLxS de la Johns Hopkins University, el Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, la Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, la Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Político (SAAP) y Asuntos del Sur y con el apoyo de la Generalitat de Catalunya.

Last week, Obreal's Senior Advisor Wail Benjelloun joined a high-level panel at the launch of UNESCO's new Trends in Higher Education report where we discussed data gaps and needs in Africa, a key focus of the HAQAA3 initiative that Obreal coordinates. On the same occasion, we held bilateral meetings with UNESCO to take stock of our ongoing cooperation and align on joint priorities, from quality assurance and academic mobility to interregional dialogue.

But this is just the latest chapter of a much longer story. For years, Obreal and UNESCO have been working closely together on quality assurance, higher education data, academic mobility, and interregional dialogue across Africa, Europe, and Latin America.

Read the full story on our website. 🔗 https://obreal.org/blog/2026/05/15/obreal-unesco-higher-education-partnership/