Representatives of the Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research met for a working session with representatives of the Consorcio Ingeniería 2030 formed by Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Universidad de Concepción and Universidad de Santiago.
Representatives of the Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (Conicyt, in Spanish) met for a working session with representatives of the Consorcio Ingeniería 2030 (Engineering 2030 Consortium) formed by Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Universidad de Concepción and Universidad de Santiago, in order to join efforts for a collaborative work.
Lotte Bak, Conicyt’s program executive and Cecilia Benítez, Conicyt’s program coordinator, participated in the meeting too.
The delegation of the consortium- sponsored by the Chilean Economic Development Agency (Corfo, in Spanish)- was made up of its president, Claudio Zaror; the dean of the Faculty of Engineering of Universidad de Santiago, Juan Carlos Espinoza, and the director of Universidad de Santiago’s Nueva Ingeniería 2030 Project, Jorge Bravo.
Members of the project’s commission for international alliances attended the meeting too: Álvaro Peña y Diego Núñez, of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso; Pablo Catalán and Claudio Zaror, of Universidad de Concepción, and Aldo Saavedra, Marcela Jamett, Carolina Chávez and Diana Quevedo of Universidad de Santiago de Chile.
The purpose of the meeting organized by the Faculty of Engineering was to establish the lines of action abroad. In this regard, Conicyt expressed its great interest in contributing to university internationalization and thus encouraging the consortium to go along the same way.
For his part, the dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Juan Carlos Espinoza, said: “We need our international engagement plan to go hand in hand with the guidelines of institutions like Conicyt.” He added that the Faculty of Engineering has progressed in these matters and now the Nueva Ingeniería 2030 Project, together with the consortium, should define its engagement lines considering the needs of Chile and the Chilean engineers.
According to Conicyt’s program coordinator, Cecilia Benítez, this type of activity provides real integration opportunities and gives the possibility of presenting different contests, so that universities are able to apply for these benefits, based on their scientific merit.
She added that Conicyt has built links with institutions in different countries that could support Nueva Ingeniería 2030.
“Strengthening links with a consortium that gathers almost 20,000 engineering students is a unique factor that is highly regarded by Conicyt. For this reason, we expect to support the consortium so that it can develop strong international links,” Lotte Bak said.
Translated by Marcela Contreras
