PUJ School of Environmental and Rural Studies

Pontificia Universidad Javeriana is a private higher education institution founded in 1623. It is one of the oldest and most traditional Colombian universities, directed by the Society of Jesus, with its headquarters in Bogotá and a sectional division in Cali. It is one of the 31 universities entrusted to the Society of Jesus in Latin America, and one of the114 worldwide. Javeriana University at Bogotá with an enrollment of 22.000 students, is composed of 18 Schools comprising 62 departments, 14 institutes, and 193 academic programs in different areas of knowledge, giving the university its multidisciplinary nature.The Javeriana University has 166 research groups enrolled at the Technical Secretariat of the National Agency of Science and Technology -COLCIENCIAS. 126 of the latter have been ranked for their productivity in the National Ranking. The University ranks number one among private universities in Colombia for having the largest number of ranked groups.

It conducts research projects in the natural sciences and mathematic areas, in social and human sciences, theology, health, education, economics, management, engineering, architecture, design, urban development, and arts. It runs an average of 120 research projects per year, 30% of which have external funding, and is part of 3 National Excellence Research Centers:

• CIEBREG (Biodiversity and Genetic Resources)
• CEIBA (Interdisciplinary Research on Complex Systems)
• GEBIX (Genomics and Bioinformatics)

The Javeriana University ranks number one among private universities in Colombia for having the largest number of refereed journals. The Javeriana University was the first higher education institution in Colombia to be awarded, for its high quality level, institutional acreditation for a period of eight years by Resolution 1320 of June 12th 2003, of the Ministry of National Education. Today, only 16 universities in Colombia have been granted said recognition.

The University has a total of 27 undergraduate programs with high quality accreditation, and other ten programs are now in the more advanced accreditation process stage.In graduate programs, quality is acknowledged through the Qualified Registries. The University has156 graduate programs with Qualified Registries