Nowadays nobody has doubts about the importance of knowledge for human and social development. At the international level it is acknowledged that the investment in Higher Education is a key element for constructing an inclusive and diverse society. Policy at the European level urges education for contributing to promoting a new social model. It also claims the need for including in the  educational models teaching and learning practices that adequately integrate training for profesional practice and for the exercise of social responsibility of the students and graduated students. In this scenery, it seems clear that college teachers and researchers will have to develop new profesional competences for adapting to the new role that the University is playing as the key motor for the development of more just societies, and that University teacher training programs have to contribute to the development of such competences. International organizations such as UNESCO claim that developing skills and competences for educating through and for social justice and social responsibility has become a twenty-first-Century imperative for the Universities.

The research line of this project has to do with University teacher training and specifically with the analysis of the iniciatives related to teacher development for social justice and social responsibility in Higher Education. Given the limited literature and research on this topic, it was decided to focus the study on the Spanish universities, prior to taking an international perspective. Also, the concept of social justice that underlines these actions is being analyzed. Since this research does not only have a descriptive aim, it tries to offer suggestions about strategies of college teacher training that can be valid in the next years for the development of the social dimensión of Higher Education.

The study has the following specific aims:

1. Identify and describe actions of initial and continuous university teacher training in the Spanish universities, that promote the development of social justice and social responsibility.

2. Establish a model of analysis of the actions that are taken by the universities, so that working lines can be identified and procedure standards can be developed for facilitating the process of making decisions about actions for promoting social justice in and from the universities. 

3. Identify and analyze the concept of social justice and social responsibility that underlies the training actions related to these issues, according to the opinión of the persons responsable for their their planning, teacher trainers and teachers in training.

4. Make some recommendatios as a response to the challenge that society presents to Higher Education.

The Project, that lasts two year, tries to be a contribution from two consolidated research fields –the Profesional Development of University Teachers and Social Justice in Education. However the literature about Higher Education Teacher Training for Social Justice is limited at the international level. It is expected that data collected in this study will serve as the basis for an international study including other European countries, and to create a dialogue to develop common policies in the European Higher Education Area.

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