SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
This article is part of the Research TopicUniversity Education for Sustainable Development: Challenges and OpportunitiesView all 17 articles
Mentoring and University Social Responsibility: A Systematic Review of Strategies and Impacts in Higher Education
Provisionally accepted
Hitler Giovanni Ocupa-Cabrera*
Monica Elisa Meneses La Riva
Víctor Hugo Fernández-Bedoya*
JOSEFINA AMANDA SUYO VEGA- Cesar Vallejo University, Herrera, Peru
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This systematic review explores the relationship between University Social Responsibility (USR) and mentoring programs within higher education institutions. The study aimed to identify how mentoring contributes to the development of ethical, civic, and social competencies aligned with USR principles. A total of 15 scientific articles were selected based on inclusion criteria from databases including SciELO, Scopus, Web of Science, and EBSCO. The selected studies employed various methodologies: literature reviews (6), qualitative (5), quantitative (3), and mixed-methSDGs (1). Findings revealed that while USR is increasingly acknowledged as a strategic and ethical imperative, it often remains fragmented and limited to extracurricular initiatives. Mentoring was identified as a key strategy to integrate USR values, promoting student development, institutional engagement, and social transformation. However, challenges such as curricular disconnects, limited institutional support, and insufficient impact assessment mechanisms were noted. The review highlights the need to institutionalize USR through policy, curricular reform, and participatory methodologies. It concludes that mentoring, when aligned with USR, enhances student formation and supports universities' contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals. Future research should further explore this integration to strengthen the social mission of higher education.
Keywords: University social responsibility, mentoring, higher education, student devel-opment, Ethical formation, Civic engagement, social transformation, sustainable de-velopment
Received: 08 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ocupa-Cabrera, Meneses La Riva, Fernández-Bedoya and SUYO VEGA. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hitler Giovanni Ocupa-Cabrera
Víctor Hugo Fernández-Bedoya
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.