University Social Responsibility (USR) in the context of Peruvian society A systematic review

Abstract Background: The university social responsibility (USR) goes beyond the traditional extension and solidary social projection of the universities, but the professional must improve and develop proposals in improvement of the country. The objective is to carry out a systematic review of the scientific production related to USR in Peru and to analysed the most important findings of this production. Method: A search of scientific production associated with the topic of USR was carried out through a systematic review of articles in English and Spanish in SCOPUS, REDALYC and SCIELO repositories. The inclusion criteria were that the articles should have university social responsibility as a premise and their focus should be within the Peruvian context. The exclusion criterion was that all the articles on USR should be from Latin America or the world. The last search and filtering of articles was performed in February 2023. The methods used to present the results and avoid bias were through filters; starting with the search for titles according to the search equation, then filtering and eliminating all the articles that did not talk about the USR, then reading all the abstracts of the articles, where all those that were not within the inclusion criteria were discarded and finally all the missing research was read in order to analysed the information necessary for the research. Results: A total of 20 articles were analysed. The main results showed that university social responsibility in the Peruvian context seeks to benefit society and to form ethical and responsible students. However, more policies and actions are needed to encourage the participation of all universities in USR. Conclusion: Concluding that when talking about USR, it should be said that the main beneficiaries of it should always be society, which is in the end the one that students owe, in aspiring to improve the conditions of their country, within the possibilities they have and from their professional development obtained in higher institutions. The implication for future research is to carry out more studies on MSW but within the national university centres in the highlands and jungle areas of Peru, where it is possible to show the state of this topic in other areas of Peru.