Research in the social sciences and on cultural topics can improve people’s quality of life and regional economies. During the VI Annual Meeting at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), Juan Carlos Prieto, general director of the Santa María la Real Foundation for Historical Heritage, argued along these lines. The meeting was organized in collaboration with the La Caixa and Caja Navarra Banking Foundations.

The expert participated in a round table alongside Jaime Nuño, the director of the Center for Romanesque Studies, and Leopoldo Gil, the architect of the Government of Navarra’s Historical Heritage Service within the Prince of Viana Institute. Julia Pavón Benito, director of the Department of History, History of Art and Geography at the University of Navarra, moderated the session.

Juan Carlos Prieto (center), along with Jaime Nuño (left) and Leopoldo Gil (right) during the roundtable at ICS’s VI Annual Meeting

For Prieto, "Social impact is not just media impact," and includes having an effect in the immediate sphere: "We have to make our research generate jobs, visibility and economic impact..."

In that sense, he noted that, "research provides the knowledge and tools needed to improve society’s quality of life, as well as foment economic growth, and improve the immediate surroundings, which encourages other people to visit and get to know a given region… We can live better because we have the resources at our disposal.”

In addition, the foundation director argued that exchange with society enriches research and encourages public and private entities to provide financial assistance: "To the extent that we lead change, we will be able to better involve society and the institutions that donate resources."

"This creates a positive circle: research centers contribute to society, which in turn receive support and thus improve their research and their contributions to the world," he added.

Collaborate to go further

On the other hand, Prieto defended the importance interdisciplinary collaboration to enrich research. He concluded that, "We must collaborate on research tasks and with other sectors so that individual research has social and economic impact."

See the video below for an interview with Juan Carlos Prieto during the VI Annual Meeting:

The Santa María la Real Foundation for Historic Heritage, located in Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia), promotes the conservation, restoration, promotion and dissemination of cultural, natural and social heritage assets with national and international projection.

It emerged in 2014 through the integration of the Santa María la Real Foundation and the Foundation for Castile and Leon’s Historical Heritage. It is constituted as a private non-profit cultural foundation.