• The Nueva Ingeniería 2030 Project organized a contest in which 21 academics were selected to visit foreign institutions focused on innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Faculty of Engineering of Universidad de Santiago and the International Partnerships Program of the Nueva Ingeniería 2030 Project organized a contest to select academics who will visit renowned foreign universities with the purpose of consolidating, broadening and building links between the faculty and those institutions.

Another goal of these academic missions will be to boost the development of exchange mechanisms and/or programs for academics and researchers who will contribute in turn to promote student exchange both at an undergraduate and graduate level.

According to Jack Brady, assistant director of the International Partnerships Program of the project, “these missions will result in agreements that will connect Universidad de Santiago with world-class universities. This will directly contribute to the goals of the project in terms of undergraduate and graduate students exchange and collaboration in different areas.”

Many academics of the faculty have already contacted different universities which focus is innovation. They will have the mission of “bringing Fab Lab models that we can adapt to our faculty and facilitate the development technology-based graduate programs,” Brady said.

The activity was led by the dean of the faculty, Juan Carlos Espinoza, and the co-director of the Nueva Ingeniería 2030 Project, Dr Mario López. On the occasion, the academics signed the missions’ commitments.

Some of the universities that the 21 academics will visit are: Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), Technische Universität Dresden (Germany), Ecole Polytechnique Palaiseau (France), Università di Bologna (Italy), Università di Torino (Italy), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Switzerland), Politécnico di Milano (Italy), Universidad de Navarra (Spain), University of Washington (USA), Stanford University (USA), University of British Columbia (Canada), Ecole Polytechnique (France), Université de Lorraine (France), Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (Spain), Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain) and others.

These missions will allow building a direct relationship with institutions that can generate networks to contribute to the development of the Observatory for University Internationalization and will help to identify strategies to become part of university international networks and innovation and entrepreneurship centers. 

Translated by Marcela Contreras

•  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