The Puentes Consortium

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Made up of 5 universities from Mexico and the United States,* The Puentes Consortium provides a distinctive voice for the bi-national community of scholars who carry out multidisciplinary research on issues of importance to the relations between Mexico and the U.S. and to the well-being of their inhabitants. While the formal announcement of the consortium took place in Houston in January of 2010, the consortium had already created bi-national teams in 2009 for the first year’s research agenda, which focused on Mexico-U.S. border security.

The distinctive nature of this consortium resides both in the high-level, regular dialogue that takes place between the university presidents and leaders in government, business, and other institutions concerned with Mexico-U.S. relations, and in the sustained, active research carried out by bi-national teams of scholars. Together, these interactions will enhance the connectivity between our two nations’ institutions of higher education and lay the foundation for long-term, effective dialogue. The consortium will focus its resources on a different topic annually, carrying out research with an orientation towards public policy. Each year will culminate in the Puentes Consortium’s Mexico-U.S. Higher Education Leadership Forum, where the research will be discussed and deliberated upon by the member institutions and their leadership teams. The first conference was held in January 2010 on Rice University’s campus. While the consortium’s founding members are five institutions, we are considering the option of expanding productively over the coming years.

* Participating universities in Mexico include Monterrey Tec (ITESM), the University of Monterrey (UDEM) and the University of the Americas in Puebla (UDLAP) and, in the U.S., the University of Arizona and Rice University.