El Modelo de Renovación de Licencia Institucional como una política pública desde el Sur Global para la contribución de las universidades a los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible y al desarrollo humano

In 2014, the Peruvian government began a reform to address issues of deregulation, inequality, and poor quality in the university system. As part of this reform, the Institutional License Renewal Model was a public policy that set forth basic quality standards that Peruvian universities had to meet to continue operating. I led the team that developed this policy. This article describes how the Capability Approach inspired the design of this public policy to impact universities’ contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals and human development. The article also demonstrates how the Approach can shed light on the policy’s limitations. Similarly, by learning from the Model’s fate, the Capability Approach can be enriched by showing how the sustainability of a public policy, and therefore the security of the capabilities it promotes, depends on institutions that bring together, organize, and enable beneficiaries to be represented, allowing them to become agents in the process. Important lessons can be drawn from this for other countries in the Global South.