Fundación Alternativas is an Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 progressive

Progressivism

Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

 think tank

Think tank

A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...

 created in 1997 in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 which aims to discuss issues of interest to citizens and act as a channel of political, social, economic and cultural thought. Although many members of this patronage and direction belong to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

 (social-democrats), the Foundation has no legal or organizational relationship with this party.

Fundación Alternativas has four autonomous departments of study:

• Laboratorio de Alternativas (Alternatives Laboratory), whose director is Belén Barreiro, is configured as a meeting place, discussion and collaboration between universities, researchers, public authorities and anyone else interested in improving collective life. Its primary goal is to bring public policy under permanent scrutiny, to assess its suitability for the construction of an advanced society in terms of individual and collective freedoms, justice
  Justice
  Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
  
   and social equity
  Social equity
  There are multiple definitions of social equity as it is a new term; each industry has seemed to take on a different connotation. The following provides for examples of each connotation.-Sustainable Development:...
  
   and economic progress.

• Observatorio de Política Exterior española (OPEX) (Alternatives Foundation’s Observatory of Spanish Foreign Policy) whose director is the vice president of the Foundation, Nicolás Sartorius. OPEX was established in October 2004 to refresh and promote Spain’s foreign policy on all fronts: politics, security, economics and culture. The Observatory seeks to act as a center of study, debate and dissemination of Spanish foreign policy issues from a progressive standpoint. Spanish foreign policy
  Foreign policy
  A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
  
   is analyzed from a critical point of view, open to innovative approaches in the different geographical and thematic, bilateral and multilateral areas within the framework of Spain's membership in the European Union
  European Union
  The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
  
   and its inclusion in the globalization
  Globalization
  Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
  
   process.

• Estudios de Progreso (Studies of Progress), a program of progress and proposals for social change
  Social change
  Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
  
   for young researchers.

• Observatorio de Cultura y Comunicación (OCC-FA) (Observatory for Culture and Communication), a center of study, debate and proposals on the current transformations of culture
  Culture
  Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
  
   and communication, and public policies that affect them.

From its founding, its president was Victoria Camps

Victoria Camps

Victoria Camps is a Catalan philosopher and professor of ethics.She obtained a degree in philosophy at the University of Barcelona, completing her thesis, entitled “La dimensión pragmática del lenguaje”, in 1975....

 until 2001, when she was replaced by Pere Portabella

Pere Portabella

Pere Portabella i Ràfols is a Catalan experimental filmmaker, artist and politician.-Career as a Filmmaker:...

. In its patronage are Felipe González

Felipe González

Felipe González Márquez is a Spanish socialist politician. He was the General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party from 1974 to 1997. To date, he remains the longest-serving Prime Minister of Spain, after having served four successive mandates from 1982 to 1996.-Early life:Felipe was...

, Gregorio Peces-Barba, Joaquín Almunia

Joaquín Almunia

Joaquín Almunia Amann is a Spanish politician and prominent member of the European Commission, currently responsible for Competition under the second mandate of President Barroso. He was previously responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs in Barroso's previous mandate...

, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party . He was elected for two terms as Prime Minister of Spain, in the 2004 and 2008 general elections. On 2 April 2011 he announced he will not stand for re-election in 2012...

and many others.

External links

• Fundación Alternativas web