The delegation of the UFRO stayed in Brazil until August 22nd. They fulfilled a busy agenda of activities which reflects partnerships of excellence and collaborative work beyond the borders.

The relationship between the Universidad de La Frontera and prestigious Brazilian institutionshas been very productive over the years, as a result of the actions taken in order to foster internationalization. At this moment, the UFRO has a series of agreements with Brazilian institutions and the positive experiences in research and postgraduate programs contributed to the consolidation of networks and established trust for cooperation.

In order to strengthen the link with the institutions of cooperation in Brazil and to explore new spaces to build networks that permit to strengthen the internationalization of the work of the UFRO, a delegation of the UFRO went to Brazil with a busy agenda of activities and stays until august 22nd.

Head of the delegation is the Academic Vice-Rector Dr. Rubén Leal, accompanied by the Director of Analysis and Institutional Development, Dr. Ricardo Herrera; the Director of International Cooperation, Dr. Pamela Leal; the Director of the Center of Excellence in Translational Medicine, Dr. Raúl Sánchez; the Director of the Doctorate Programs in Science with mention in Applied Cellular and Molecular Biology, Dr. Luis Salazar; and the Director of the Doctorate Program in Morphological Science, Dr. Mariano del Sol.

Several meetings with universities and institutions in different parts of Brazil are part of this institutional visit, starting in Brasilia with a meeting at the Chilean Embassy and continuing at the Capes Foundation and the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development).

Afterwards, the representatives of the UFRO went to meetings at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro and the FAPERJ (Research Support Foundation of the State of Rio de Janeiro), which is an institution for the promotion of science, technology and innovation, and has shown positive results as collaborative partner ofthe UFRO. The emphasis of these encounters lied on the possibility to expand the field of work in agriculture, geography, education, food, phytopharmaceuticals, etc.

The activities will go on in the city of Porto Alegre from August 18th, mainly at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul with which we hope to extend our cooperation and the framework for action.

Sao Paulo will be the last destination of the UFRO delegation, at the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), a prestigious institution of higher education and one of the best universities in Latin America, with which we have a productive cooperation and an auspicious program of double degree for postgraduate students. The visit continues at the FAPESP and at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo.

UFRO maintains leadership and shows results of excellence in the areas of teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Once again, the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) occupies an important position in the report published by the Times Higher Education Latin America University Rankings 2017.

In the international register, the UFRO – a public, state and regional university – achieved to stay within a privileged place in Latin America and in Chile.

The Rector Sergio Bravo pointed out: "To be the best state University of the regions and to rank among the best 10 in Chile and among the top 35 in Latin America, this is a result that reflects the excellence with which the entire UFRO community is developing the work during years, achieving a prestigious and consolidated position in national and international quality measurements.”

He added, that this position also "values the institutional trajectory and the efforts that have been invested as a state and regional University which is committed to quality, especially when we included our indispensable commitment to excellence and precision in our work.”

PRESTIGE AND QUALITY

In this version, the Times Higher Education rated 81 universities in Latin America, using the same criteria as the World University Rankings, but with special modifications to better reflect the qualities of Latin America´s institutions. This way, 13 separate performance indicators of the main tasks – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook – are used to evaluate the world-class educational institutions.

The director of Academic Quality, Dr. Martha Ramírez, pointed out that "the international recognition of the THE to our Institution, for the second consecutive year, is a confirmation of the quality of our processes and results, and also allows us to know how we are doing at the national and international level in the dimensions analyzed and to identify opportunities for improvement.”

"This ranking is one of the most prestigious, nationally and internationally, because it expresses the levels of complexity of university institutions. The position we achieved this year, is the result of an institutional development policy that focuses on complexity and quality as the guiding principles of the tasks and that, incidentally, are the most valued aspects by the entities which we are linked to as UFRO – such as Conicyt – in order to generate new projects, and that use this prestigious ranking as one of the conditions of eligibility to apply for a Becas-Chile Scholarship for postgraduate studies at the best universities in the world”, stressed the director of Analysis and Institutional Development, Dr. Ricardo Herrera.

The Director of International Affairs, Dr. Pamela Leal, highlights another aspect: "For the objective of internationalization of our University, to rank as one of the best State and Region Universities of Chile in this important ranking is a result that opens us more and new doors and benefits the entire UFRO Community in Chile and abroad".

Even though, this position continues to give prestige to the UFRO in the national and Latin American scenario and as a leader in the Araucanía Region, the Rector, Sergio Bravo, emphasized that this achievement also implies an even bigger motivation to advance in the challenges of the institution: "This ranking confirms that we are on the right track, but also encourages us with regard to the goals that we have set ourselves, and that involves the work of the entire University Community."

VIEW RANKING HERE

Written by: Direction of Communications

Student Development Office launches Linguistic Café to promote cultural encounters and the use of four different languages

The main objective of this innovative initiative,launched by the Student Development Office, is to promote and improve the use of different languages in open conversations.

The activity will take place on August 23rd, 30th and on Wednesday, 6th of September at the refectory Las Notros at 5 pm.

We invite the whole university community to participate in this activity that includes the languages English, French, German and Mapudungun. The students who are interested in participating simply have to be at the indicated place at the indicated time.

The idea of the Linguistic Café is to sit down with a group of people and have a conversation, which is guided by a native speaker or a language expert.

Another goal of this innovative activity is to get fluent speakers, native speakers and beginners together, in order to get to know each other and to practice and improve their language skills in an entertaining group activity.

“This activity has been introduced and developed in different parts of the world in order to promote and practice different languages. Considering our reality at the UFRO, we thought of these four languages, including Mapudungun as a kind of responsibility and because of its relevance for our environment”, says Camilo Vásquez who is responsible for this activity and has the support of the Student Development Office.

He also adds that the Linguistic Café is a valuable alternative for those students of the University who plan to do an exchange period abroad, because this way they can practice the language of their destination and listen to the experiences of other students who have already completed their exchange period abroad.

The activity is free of charge and the participation is voluntarily. It is open to our students and employees, as well as to everyone who is interested and not part of the Universidad de La Frontera.

Dr. César Arriagada Escamilla of the Department of Forestry Science at the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Science has been studying the contamination of soils by heavy metals for almost 20 years.

In a new research, carried out thanks to a Fondecyt Regular Project, Dr. Arriagada seeks to analyze the transcriptome of plants, which are tolerant to heavy metal contamination and which, as a result of climate change (drought), are facing adverse conditions. The objective is to understand the functioning of the genes that are expressed under these conditions of contamination and water deficits, opening a number of research horizons.

"Along with researchers from the University of Waterloo,in Ontario, Canada,we are currently analyzing and decoding the genome of a bacterium which is highly resistant to arsenic", he says. For that purpose, the focus lies on the exploration of bacteria and fungi which promote the plant growth and activate tolerance mechanisms to these polluting elementsinplants.

"During the years, we have been broadening our research on contaminated soils by incorporating the global analysis of gene expression: tolerant plants and microorganisms associated with them in their rhizosphere; part of the soil that is immediate to the living roots and which is under the direct influence of them. This is why we are working with those bacteria and fungi that are adapted to such soil and extreme climatic conditions”, he adds.

The above is related to the isolation of microorganisms that may be potential inducers of stress tolerance in plants which are exposed to metal contamination and water deficits.

"We are isolating these types of microorganisms from the Atacama Desert –the Puchuncaví Valley, an extreme environment in the north of Chile, which has a high degree of heavy metal pollution – and from volcanic areas in the National Parks of Villarrica and Conguillio, another extreme environment", says the researcher.

Once the isolation is done, the idea is to continue with the molecular work and to identify which genes of the studied plants are evident. According to the researcher, the genes which will express themselves in terms of contamination are going to be directly related to the ones that express themselves in terms of stress problems due to water shortages.

“This is what we want to study, this is interesting, because from these results we can specifically define the mechanisms of tolerance provided by the fungi and bacteria and how they promote plant growth under these types of stress", says Dr. Arriagada.
In addition, these microorganisms do not only protect the plant, but also help it to obtain nutritional resources and water, so that this research is perfectly applicable to the conditions of agriculture and conventional forestry, which are exposed to increasing stress scenarios because of the climate change.

“It is a line of research that continues to grow and is becoming more and more consolidated. Each time, we have better responses from foreign scientists who see many potential for scientific development in our project. We always add an attractive component and this time, we address the drought as a result of the climate change from a completely different point of view compared to what has already been done, by using the gene characterization of the studied plants”, he concluded.

Written by: Lorena Espinoza
Vice-Rectorate of Research and Postgraduate Programs