The Chinese-Canadian vaccine requires only one dose and is the fourth one approved by the ISP for its use in Chile, where the clinical trials were led by the Universidad de La Frontera.

Chile received the first 300 thousand doses of the Chinese-Canadian vaccine CanSino in the presence of the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris; the Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, Andrés Couve; the Rector of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), Dr. Eduardo Hebel, and the UFRO researcher Dr. Fernando Lanas, who was part of the team that led the clinical trials for this vaccine in Chile.

CanSino is the fourth vaccine approved by the Institute for Public Health (ISP) in Chile. It requires only one dose and the Health Minister pointed out that it will be used mainly in remote areas. These 300,000 doses are the first batch of 1,800,000 doses that will arrive in Chile.

“Today is a great day for Chile,” Dr. Eduardo Hebel, the Rector of UFRO, said, adding that the Universidad de La Frontera has joined the efforts made by scientists around the world. “Today, we can proudly see that the study we were leading at a regional university, in alliance with three other Chilean universities, brought concrete and significant results for the Chilean population, since we received the first doses of this vaccine, being able to distribute them all over the country. We were able to make an important contribution as a regional university, making visible our capacities, thanks to the collaborative work within the national and international scientific community.”

Dr. Fernando Lanas, a researcher of the Faculty of Medicine who was part of the team that led the clinical trials for this vaccine in Chile, thanked the authorities for the trust they have placed in the university to lead and coordinate the work, as well as the 3,500 volunteers who participated in the trials and contributed to the knowledge and health of the people around the world.

The UFRO researcher explained that this vaccine uses an inactive human adenovirus, which carries the “S” protein of the coronavirus on its surface. He also highlighted that the interim studies indicated an effectiveness of 65.7% to prevent symptomatic cases and 90.98% to prevent severe cases. “When we received the invitation to coordinate this study, we knew that Chile had already purchased a substantial amount of vaccines, so we started the trial thinking that they might not be used. Today, we are very happy to see the arrival of these first doses.”

The Vice-Rector for Research and Graduate Studies at UFRO, Dr. Pamela Serón, emphasized that this has been a huge effort by the researchers from UFRO, the universities Universidad San Sebastián and Universidad Austral de Chile, different Health Centers, the Scientific Committee on Vaccines and the Saval Laboratories. “We are very proud and satisfied, since we were able to fulfill such a fundamental task of a university, which is the promotion, coordination and research that leads to an impact on the well-being of the society,” she concluded.

Written by: Karimme Riadi Millas
Vice-Rectorate for Research and Graduate Studies, UFRO

Center for World University Rankings lists UFRO among the top 10 in Chile

In its recent report, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) 2021-2022 once again ranks the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) among the ten best universities in Chile. This year, it reached place 9 in Chile, and at the international level it is among the best 1.500 universities, maintaining its range compared to the previous report of 2020-2021.

This is the only academic ranking of global universities that assesses the quality of education, alumni employment, the quality of faculty, and the research performance. For the report, CWUR makes a classification by subject in 227 categories, according to the number of research papers published in top-level journals.

The ranking listed 14 Chilean universities, of which UFRO is in place number 9 and in third place among the state universities. At the international level, it is ranked in 1467th place, climbing 50 positions compared to the previous edition of the ranking.

CWUR

Since 2012, the Center for World University Rankings has been publishing this report, which started as a project with the aim of rating the top 100 world universities. It expanded over the years, listing the top two thousand out of nearly twenty thousand universities worldwide in 2019.

ASSESSED CRITERIA

The criteria assessed by this ranking are the Quality of Education (25%); Alumni Employment (25%); Quality of Faculty (10%); Research Performance and Research Output (10%); High-Quality Publications (10%); Influence (10%); and Citations (10%).

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE RANKING

Written by: Communications Office, UFRO

Students from Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia are participating in the current courses, improving their Spanish reading, listening, writing and speaking skills.

The Spanish courses for foreign students at the university Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) are an initiative that started in 2018. The courses are carried out by the Language Coordination Center (CODI), which is one of the units of the Office for Comprehensive Training and Employability of the Vice-Rectorate for Undergraduate Affairs, in cooperation with the Student Mobility Unit, which is part of the International Affairs Office.

“Over the years, we were able to establish a very fruitful alliance between the Language Coordination Center and the International Affairs Office, which allows us to implement these courses that are always in demand. Our purpose is to contribute to the students’ education and to make our university more visible. In addition, we are also planning other alliances, so that our students can participate in language courses at foreign universities,” emphasizes Juan Méndez, the Director of the Office for Comprehensive Training and Employability.

Although it was not possible to carry out these courses in 2020, due to the pandemic, this year, the courses take place online. They last eight weeks and include 32 hours of synchronous work and 16 hours of asynchronous work. Every course allows a maximum of 20 international students from the universities that have an agreement with UFRO.

The director of CODI, Felipe Opazo, emphasizes that “the participants are students from different parts of the world, who all want to learn Spanish and, in the near future, want to study at our university or get to know other Spanish-speaking countries. After the first sessions, we noticed the great interest and enthusiasm of the students to learn Spanish as a second or third language, and that makes us very happy, since it is the first time that we carry out these courses online”.

He also adds that “these courses follow the same methodology we use to teach English to our undergraduate students, in which the activities focus on culture, communication and being able to communicate, rather than focusing on exact grammar. We hope that we will be able to continue with these courses in the future, strengthening our ties with the foreign universities that have an agreement with us, and also showing students from all over the world who UFRO is and why our university stands out in Latin America”.

The courses are based on a communicative approach, so that the students from Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia will be able to improve their Spanish reading, listening, writing and speaking skills. There are also two different levels available: Spanish for Beginners (A1) and Intermediate Spanish (B1).

In addition, the participants will be able to learn more about the Chilean and Latin American culture, so that it will be easier for them to adapt when they come to Chile or another Spanish-speaking country in Latin America in the future.

According to Antonia Espinoza, the director of the Student Mobility Unit at UFRO, the International Affairs Office is very pleased with the alliance with CODI that allows the development of these Spanish courses for foreign students. “We are excited to know that our courses are highly demanded and we are also grateful that these times of virtuality allow us to reach students from all over the world. We hope that we will be able to continue with this offer, in order to position UFRO as an international educational destination,” she adds.

EXPERIENCES

“The classes are interesting, fun and varied. It is a good mix of oral exercises, grammar, and knowledge about the Latin American culture and customs. Our teacher, Carla, is a very nice person and manages to include all of the students in the exercises. Many thanks to UFRO for this opportunity. I am very happy to be part of this initiative,” comments Mirjam Wallimann (Switzerland).

“I want to learn Spanish because, until today, I have not had the opportunity to learn a language other than my mother tongue, and also because I like this language and identify with it, much more than with the English language. I chose UFRO because my university promoted this program and, fortunately, I fulfilled the requirements. Apart from that, I did some research on UFRO and I liked the fact that it is a university of excellence,” explains Rafaella Santana (Brazil).

“My experience with the course is very good. I have already completed a couple of classes, and the teacher is very dedicated and proactive. I will go to Spain next year for my studies, so that is why I want to learn Spanish. Apart from that, it is a language that is widely spoken around Brazil and I like learning new languages,” says Cauan Montano Brutton (Brazil).

“I always wanted to learn Spanish, because I think that it is a beautiful language. I applied to spend a semester in Spain, but in the end, it didn't work out because of different reasons. Besides, I would like to travel to Mexico and South America, maybe this year or next year. It was my university (PH Lucerne) that suggested this course as a possibility to learn Spanish and I loved the idea of learning Spanish in an international course. That is why I enrolled,” explains Fabienne Raissle (Switzerland).

Written by: Rocío Álvarez Yáñez
Vice-Rectorate for Undergraduate Affairs

Dr. José María Rey Benayas, Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science at UFRO, is part of the World´s Top 2% Scientists Ranking, which lists the most influential scientists in the world.

Stanford University, one of the best universities in the world, created the study called “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”, which leads to the ranking of 2% of the best scientists in the world, according to their scientific productivity. The latest version of this ranking also listed Dr. José María Rey Benayas, Honorary Professor of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science at the university Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), who receives this important international recognition thanks to his extensive experience in the field of Ecosystem Restoration.

Regarding this important achievement, Dr. Rey Benayas explains that, for him, this feels like a recognition of his long academic career in which he has always set the highest standards for himself. “There is no doubt that my ties to UFRO and the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science are part of the reasons I achieved this recognition, since I have been participating in different initiatives, projects and publications with several researchers for many years already,” he commented from Spain, where he lives at the moment.

According to Dr. Adison Altamirano, the Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science at UFRO, it is an honor that a professor of the Faculty is distinguished as one of the best scientists in the world. “Dr. Rey Benayas has been working with Universidad de La Frontera for more than 10 years now, maintaining a fruitful and enriching relationship,” he said, and highlighted his participation in scientific publications, postgraduate courses in the Master's Program in Natural Resource Management and the Doctoral Program in Agri-food Sciences and Environment, as well as his constant disposition to hold conferences for professionals and farmers of our region and to work on research projects.

Besides, the dean pointed out that “the contribution of Dr. Rey Benayas is essential for the development of a comprehensive vision of the activities at the Faculty's Experimental Campus Maquehue, which encourages us to develop a strategy that allows us to harmonize the production of agri-food and the conservation of the environment”.

CAREER

José María Rey Benayas is a Professor at the University of Alcalá (Spain), since 1994. He earned his Ph.D. at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain) in 1990 and completed his postdoctoral studies at Northern Illinois University and GeoEcoArc Research (USA).

During his prolific academic career, together with colleagues from different parts of the world, he established the International Foundation for the Restoration of Ecosystems (FIRE), in order to transfer academic knowledge to society; a project that also led to the establishment of FIRE-Chile, which was established in alliance with UFRO.

He has been collaborating with Chile since 2001, thus contributing to the scientific development of the country, through research projects and the training of researchers, of which most of them have established themselves in their fields.

He has also contributed to the training of professionals in the Master's Degree in Ecosystem Restoration. Several Chilean students attended this program and specific courses, especially at the Universidad de La Frontera.

“Apart from the academic activities, Dr. Rey Benayas is an academic with a unique vision and a great commitment to public universities, the relationship with society and the conservation of nature, which has set an example for our students and academics,” the dean concludes.

Written by: UFRO Communications Office