The article presents an overview of the relationships between higher education institutions, researchers, and social movements in Colombia. Based on a periodisation of the different modes of alignments or gaps between these 3 social actors, the study focuses on two significant experiences of collaborative research between researchers and social movements. First, an experience with peasant movements from the Atlantic Coast led by Orlando Fals Borda from La Rosca Foundation in the 1970s, and which originated Participatory Action Research. Then, a project conducted by the Subjects and New Narratives in Research and Teaching of the Social Sciences research group at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional focused on the systematisation of practices with popular organisations and their inputs to the field of critialc research. Finally, a balance of the current situation of joint research between social movements and collectives of researchers linked to higher education institutions is presented.