Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (UPS), Universidad de Cuenca, Universidad Católica de Cuenca and the Municipality of Cuenca signed an agreement to create the first Sciences Institute for Families (ICFA for its acronym in Spanish). 

The agreement comes after the "4th International Seminar on family intervention: family and higher education in today's society" which was held in Universidad de Cuenca. During one of the talks, UPS President Javier Herran suggested the creation of a university network that is able to understand, analyze and intervene in families as an organization that guarantees personal development in all phases of life, as well as have parents get involved in their children's education. 

The aim of the agreement is to create an inter university academic network on family sciences in the province of Azuay in order to provide support, intervention, training, research and scientific articles on family sciences, and the creation of an Institute of Family Science to support society. 

Fernando Pesantez, general vice president of UPS, said "family is a basic unit of human coexistence, it is the place of common residence. There is no other group where people spend as much time as with family and have similar needs, interests and tasks"

"Today we are here with three prestigious universities to support the creation of the Institute, because public administration also has a pedagogical, emancipatory, solidarity, social inclusion content. We will always work together to improve quality of life and thus change realities that affect us as a society", said the Mayor of the city of Cuenca, Pedro Palacios. 

The institute will have services of clinical psychology, educational psychology, family guidance and social work