The assessment of the cooperation agreement advances and the planning of new joint activities – these were some of the topics the UFRO delegation worked on with KU Leuven University in Belgium, which is one of the most prestigious and traditional ones in Europe.

The Belgium KU Leuven University is among the best 50 universities in the world according to the prestigious Times Higher Education Ranking (THE) 2018 and it has become a strategic ally for the Universidad de La Frontera within the cooperation that already lasts ten years.

The UFRO is the only university in Latin-America which the KU Leuven University has an extended Cooperation Agreement and a Double Degree Agreement for Doctoral Programs with, that has been signed in 2017 and broadened the previous agreement signed in 2009 by the UFRO Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science and the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering (FBSE) of KU Leuven.

These are strings that maintain the confidence and mutual collaboration the universities sustained over time. This is what its promoters at the institutional level, the academics Rodolfo Pihán and Dr. Adison Altamirano of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science, who have been participating in a series of activities in Belgium, said. Their objective is to assess the advances of this Cooperation Agreement together with KU Leuven and to define new specific activities.

“This prestigious European university is a strategic ally for the UFRO. It is one of the best in the world and with which we have been developing successful collaborative work over time, with concrete activities because of which for example a productive student and academic exchange has been possible. Each semester, Belgium researchers visit us and we receive postgraduate students who come to our country and university to live an international academic experience”, Rodolfo Pihán commented.

He added that “since last year, we have been able to amplify this alliance that benefits the whole university, apart from the Double Degree Agreement for doctoral programs in Science, Engineering and Technology, which is very relevant in the work of internationalization of our university´s postgraduate programs.”

“But the idea is to advance within these new activities that maintain the Agreements active and productive”, Dr. Adison Altamirano said. “During the visit, we have been working on the assessment of the cooperation advances and on some specific actions we are developing. One of them is the Double Degree Agreement and we have been talking about the connections with professors and co-tutors at KU Leuven and the process the doctoral students have to go through to access this double degree.”

Against this background, they had a series of meetings with authorities of the FBSE, such as the director of International Relations, Matt Tips, and the UFRO agreements coordinator, Dr. Pol Coppin, apart from from visits in order to get to know the scientific work at the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis and the Bioversity International Musa GermplasmTransit Centre, among other activities.

Another topic the academics worked on was the advance on a joint project of creating an international scientific center that is focused on global issues from a multidisciplinary perspective that reaches from social science to engineering science.

“We achieved the growth of this cooperation and its projection over time. Both universities are interested in that. Each year, we have Belgium students in our classrooms, we do joint research, and we are creating new activities in order to maintain this alliance alive”, Rodolfo Pihán pointed out.

At the moment, two UFRO Master´s students in Natural Resource Management, Germán Catalán and Paola Arroyo, are at KU Leuven for an academic exchange and with an Erasmus scholarship each. And in July, a delegation of the European institution is going to come to Temuco, led by the dean of the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Nadine Buys, accompanied by Christophe Courtin, Pol Coppin and Bart Muys.

The quality indicators of the Universidad de La Frontera have been analyzed by the prestigious THE international university rankings and place it among the top ten in Chile.

The quality and performance of the Universidad de La Frontera are being recognized once again at the international level by the Times Higher Education Rankings, since it is positioned in the range 251-300 in the Emerging Economies University Rankings 2018 and in 10th place among the Chilean institutions.

This ranking judges the 378 most important universities in 42 countries that are classified as Emerging Economies (advanced emerging, secondary emerging or frontier) by the FTSE.

“We have to be proud that our University, the UFRO, is placed in this prestigious ranking, especially when we consider that only 13 Chilean universities managed to enter this analysis that judges the best institutions led by research among the nations with an emerging economy, which is an important and significant advance for our institution”, Sergio Bravo, the rector of the UFRO, emphasized.

The rankings use the same 13 performance indicators as the THE World University Rankings to judge institutions on their main missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Therefore, the applied methodology has been carefully recalibrated to reflect the development characteristics and priorities of universities in emerging economies. For example, there is a special emphasis on the international outlook.

SEE EMERGING ECONOMIES UNIVERSITY RANKINGS 2018

The International Fair, organized by the Student Mobility Office, took place for the second year in a row. The purpose is to show the different countries and active agreements the UFRO has with higher education institutions on the five continents.

Nowadays, it is possible to study abroad, but the decision about where to go might be difficult and confusing for a student. Therefore, the International Affair´s Office and National and International Student Mobility Office at the Universidad de La Frontera organized the second version of the International Fair together with the exchange students.

This initiative started last year with the idea to show the different agreements and scholarship programs the UFRO has with different higher education institutions around the world and which allow the students of this University to spend a semester abroad. But also to show the international students who come to this University.

The particular aim is to create a space where the students can exchange experiences and important aspects of their cultures, to bring traditions together and to present the world as they see it. The idea for the future is to carry out this fair each semester and to offer activities that inspire the students to participate and to strengthen relations.

The director of the National and International Student Mobility Office, Antonia Espinoza, said that “the purpose of this event is that UFRO students who have been abroad and students from other countries come together and present the different cultures and food of their countries in one place.”

The confluence of flavors, cultures and languages has been presented at 13 stands that included Belgium, Rumania, Lithuania, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Peru and Colombia. The sponsors also created a stand with information about the sponsor program and the incorporation into the university community.

Waffles with hazelnut cream and apple strudel (Germany), cepelinai (Lithuania), eggplant humus (Rumania) and stierenkloten (Belgium) were only some of the dishes the students prepared to offer a little tasting menu to the visitors of the fair.

STUDENT EXPERIENCES

One of the main desires of the students who want to study a semester abroad is to get to know traditions and people with other perspectives. The Mexican law student, Ariadna López, also had this dream when she took the challenge of studying at the UFRO for a semester.

“I came to Temuco two months ago and the reception has been excellent. The Universidad de La Frontera gave me all the support I needed, on my arrival and during my stay. And also for the integration with the other students. I came here with the idea of learning as much as possible in order to make this experience absolutely worth it.”

This first semester 40 students came to the UFRO and 30 went to study abroad. Both groups mobilized via the National and International Student Mobility Office.

There are different alternatives for undergraduate students. For example, the ERASMUS scholarship was the option the civil engineering student, Gabriel Davidson, chose. “I went to the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain for a semester. My experience was positive because I was obliged to develop my English skills, since I had friends from Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Norway. The English language was a fundamental tool for being able to communicate with them.”

Complex Maxillofacial Surgery was the main topic of the event powered by the Faculty of Dentistry at the Universidad de La Frontera.

The III. Symposium on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the south of Chile was powered by the Faculty of Dentistry at the Universidad de La Frontera, which brought outstanding experts from Brazil, Spain and Chile together.

The event that took place at the Aula Magna of the UFRO has been organized by the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Division and was oriented to professional dentists and dentistry students.

In this regard, the director of the event, Dr. Sergio Olate, stated that “the idea of the symposium is to deliver good scientific support. Most of the speakers have doctorates and post-doctorates so the quality regarding clinical issues and research is validated with all the current scientific concepts”, he said.

He added that “the conferences have been clarifying. A lot of cases, clinical examples and research has been shown, that supports what we are doing each day. This is also why we ask these people to join and help us.”

Dr. Joel Joshi Otero appreciated the realization of this event since it permitted to exchange experiences and he emphasized the level of local development in this field.“These meetings are crucial in order to explore different alternatives you can find in places that are so different and far away from each other like Madrid and Temuco, which, at the same time, are at a tremendously high level”, he commented.

María Carla Prats, a dentist from Santiago, Chile, said that she found the Symposium “very good, with very interesting topics and a wide range of technology and innovation, which are very important. The posters have also been very explanatories, up-to-date and showed innovative treatments.”

For Pablo Bustos, a student at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Concepción, Chile, the event fulfilled his expectations. “Me and my fellow students, who we came to present three posters with, are very grateful for this opportunity, because we have never participated in a symposium on surgery before, but we also knew that this University was organizing one. We are leaving very happy.”

As in its earlier versions, also this year different posters have been presented during the “III. Symposium on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the south of Chile: Complex Facial Surgery”. Among the 66 posters which have been accepted, the best three in the categories “Professionals” and “Undergraduate” have been awarded.

PARTICIPANTS

The Brazilian oral and maxillofacial surgeon and teacher at the Faculty of Dentistry of the Bahiana School of Medicine and Public Health, Dr. Adriano Freitas de Assis (Salvador de Bahía); the assistant professor at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil, and teacher in the Master in Oral Implantology ILAPEO, Curitiba, Brazil, Dr. Leandro Kluppel; and the assistant professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and director of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Service “Mater Dei Health Network”, Dr. Sergio Monteiro, participated in the Symposium.

And also the Spanish oral and maxillofacial surgeon and Clinical Fellow in plastic facial surgery, Dr. Joel Joshi Otero; the oral and maxillofacial surgeon of the Regional Hospital Guillermo Grant Benavente and teacher at the Universidad de Concepción, Chile, Dr. Jorge Beltrán; and the oral and maxillofacial surgeon and associate professor at the Universidad de La Frontera and researcher at the Center of Excellence in Morphological and Surgical Studies (UFRO), Dr. Juan Pablo Alister, participated in the Symposium.