The next steps will include the active participation of the university community to receive some feedback before the approval and formalization process begins.

Since the launch of the design process for the Internationalization Strategy of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), the International Affairs Office and the Office of Innovation and Technology Transfer already made great progress with their work. In the first stage, they identified the key points and established a corresponding work plan.
Part of the plan is to include the official Internationalization Strategy in the Development Plan 2023-2030 of UFRO, to make progress in the establishment of internationalization capacities at the organizational level, and to develop a monitoring plan based on relevant indicators.

Some of the important steps in the development of this Internationalization Strategy so far were the work session in April 2021, where the Internationalization Committee of UFRO established the purpose of internationalization; the official launch of the design process for the Internationalization Strategy of UFRO in May 2021; and the trainings for the Internationalization Strategy Advisory Committee, carried out by the international advisor Marina Casals in June and July of 2021.

“We started this process with the aim of developing a comprehensive internationalization strategy that includes international and intercultural dimensions in all of the university’s activities. We focused on what makes us special and unique, and on where we want to go, in order to identify and establish the main axes, objectives and actions for the next five to ten years,” said Franklin Valdebenito, the director of the Office of Innovation and Technology Transfer.

“Therefore, we started with a self-diagnosis regarding the current degree of internationalization at UFRO, asked other universities with similar environments about their internationalization experiences, and had work sessions with advisors from Spain and South Africa,” Valdebenito added

This way, despite of the two years of remote work due to the pandemic, the Universidad de La Frontera was able to keep to the schedule for the design of an internationalization strategy and made great progress within the expected time frame. Some of the steps in this process were the different work sessions with the Internationalization Strategy Advisory Committee to determine the axes, objectives and actions between July and September of 2021; the webinar “Internationalization of Universities in a Complex Cultural Context: The Case of South Africa” and a work session with the international expert Nico Jooste in November; as well as feedback activities with key actors of the university, regarding the development progress of the Internationalization Strategy.

“We were able to prepare a first draft of the university’s Internationalization Strategy together with an Advisory Committee and key actors of the university. The next step consists of a public consultation within the university community, in order to get some feedback and to enrich our draft. We hope to be able to develop a strategy which everyone feels part of,” explained Dr. Lorena Vieli, the director of the International Affairs Office at UFRO.

The current stage includes the development of a series of indicators for being able to monitor the implementation of the Internationalization Strategy, and the organization of training sessions for different groups of the university that will be carried out once the Internationalization Strategy is formalized. In addition, a public consultation will start this month, in which the whole university community gets the chance to leave feedback and ideas about the future Internationalization Strategy of UFRO.

Written by: UFRO Communications Office
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