Introduction
The transformations that the world is undergoing in economic, educational, social, political and cultural matters, together with the great advances in science, technology and information in these times has produced a new socio-historical context where human society must every day assume the changes and challenges imposed by the information and knowledge society.
All these changes have impacted the university educational system in the world, establishing a new philosophical conception in teachers and higher education institutions. This reality leads to the emergence of new requirements and management practices for teachers, to respond efficiently and effectively to the changes we are experiencing today in this sector.
These demands caused by the knowledge society have affected the universities and all their members in the world, and particularly in Latin America and Venezuela, all these continuous processes of change have produced the need to formulate a new vision, on the role of the research teacher and the challenges they must take on as universities in the 21st century.
The dynamics of the 21st century have generated greater access to information and knowledge, since its effects and scope have caused changes in the educational structure, all this phenomenon has generated transformations in universities and teachers, generating changes in vision, the mission and the new professional development practices, with the aim of inserting itself effectively and quickly at the turn of the century.
Pérez and Cely (2004: 252) indicate that techno-scientific developments must serve and contribute to growth, since all life processes revolve around the management of information and knowledge.
Before this reality, the university education system in the world has rethought its educational policies in relation to pedagogical, didactic and research practices which leads to the emergence of new requirements and management practices for practicing university teachers, this with the purpose of respond efficiently and effectively to the changes that are experienced today in this sector of knowledge, not establishing points of arrival, but improvement and development processes for the formative management of professional and investigative competences of practicing university teachers.
Research represents a factor of great importance in the search for knowledge and new knowledge and management practices in the different branches, both natural and humanistic, for the deepest discernment of reality, being the axis of every institution of higher education in the promotion of knowledge, since it is the instrument par excellence through which the reality of a country, the community and the same institution that promotes it can be reflected, it is also the way to propose or solve alternatives to socio-educational problems, political, economic and cultural that emerge from the context of teacher development and their commitment to the society in which they are immersed.
The investigative training of practicing university teachers represents a great challenge in the face of a social context dominated by the discourse of globalization; For this reason, it is necessary for the university teacher to assume a critical attitude from and in their own training, which, far from focusing only on updating the latest advances in the knowledge of their specific subject, must be assumed from the perspective of the comprehensive, ethical, pedagogical, scientific, humanistic and technological training.
Likewise, the development of research should be the spearhead for the changes and transformations that countries need, this process of great complexity due to its own dynamics and nature needs fair budgets for universities and research centers, in addition to other motivational incentive policies so that the teaching staff of universities or knowledge centers can insert teachers in all their categories so that research is something intrinsic to being rather than commitment.
Albornoz (1991), states that the Venezuelan university has become, for structural reasons “a factory of professional qualifications, having omitted other functions such as those seeking pure and applied knowledge to efficiently and economically solve large and small national problems. " It is important to highlight that university professors in exercises have a strategic and timely way in research for the generation of knowledge and new educational and investigative practices for the solution of socio-educational and institutional problems, as well as for personal development and improvement of them themselves.
Development
Teaching and research.
The Venezuelan university has been limited and affected by the low development of research, all this reality has produced the need to promote and motivate the teaching community to reflect on such a situation.
This, according to Torres (cited in Lara, 1994), is due to various reasons, among them: "deficit budgets, student overcrowding, lack of planning and projections, inadequate teacher training and improvised reforms" that has impacted this sector of the knowledge.
It is important to highlight in the author's opinion that teaching and research is a monolithic unit that represents an important factor in the search for knowledge and new knowledge in the different branches, both natural and humanistic. Universities and their teaching community have the challenge of generating and promoting knowledge, because this is the instrument par excellence through which the reality of a country, the community and the institution itself can be reflected.
From this perspective, we consider that the practicing teacher must actively participate in the investigation of their own practice, which implies that teaching and research must be closely linked and be assumed by the educator as an intrinsic activity of him as a socializer and producer of knowledge.
To assume these processes, the practicing teacher must join a process of professional development and improvement related to specialization, master's and doctorate courses, which will lead not only to make him a specialist in the area of knowledge, but also to provide him with scientific technical tools, conceptual and procedural domain adequate to do research.
Undoubtedly, the development of research is an occupation of commitment of the teacher with and for society, the university, which constitutes an imperative, since the consequences of said activity create a favorable contribution to the problems emerging from society. Similarly, the products of research and the daily practice of the same by research teachers, means a revealing contribution to the improvement of the quality of teaching and professional development in times of change.
Research training is a continuous process of actions aimed at promoting the appropriation and development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for teachers to successfully carry out productive activities associated with scientific research, scientific-technological development and innovation, either in the academic sector or in the productive sector.
It is important to highlight that the investigative activity has a set of principles contemplated as: universality, democracy, innovation and social relevance, equity and quality; These principles reveal the commitment that teaching researchers have to society in charge of strengthening the comprehensive training of researchers in the socio-educational field.
In the author's opinion, in order to improve the training process for university research teachers, it is necessary to mitigate significant improvements in research at the institutional level, both academic and financial, with the aim of stimulating and promoting the axes that involve recent ways of conducting quality research and guarantee diversity of perspectives in the academic, scientific and ethical context.
On the other hand, within the stimulus policies promoted by the universities and different specialized entities in the area, it is necessary that the researcher must be classified considering the hierarchies of the researchers according to the criteria of the Council for Scientific and Humanistic Development of the University, this with the aim of training and having quality researchers capable of responding to the challenges of the knowledge society.
Based on these arguments, it is necessary to express that the training of the researcher teacher must be interpreted as a complex process of commitment where the interest of the teacher of the institution and the state must contribute in order to produce and develop professionals committed to this activity and capable of responding to the challenges of society.
In this sense, we subscribe to the proposals of authors such as Bedoya (2000) and Magendzo (2003), who emphasize the need for integrative research aimed at the formation of an authentic critical investigative attitude that overcomes the epistemological difficulties that currently exist. teachers find in the exercise.
From this perspective, the teacher is conceived as a creator of experiences for the production of knowledge that promotes participatory research work as part of their daily activities, reflecting and searching for solutions to the problems of society.
In summary, research in the socio-educational field must be assumed as a dynamic and changing collaborative process where dialogue and deliberation provide the inputs required to generate reflections not limited to their own biases, but to a perspective that transcends towards the search for new action parameters.
