The UFRO has participated as a benefiting institution in the Erasmus Programs of the European Union on several occasions. This time, it permitted to strengthen its partnership with University of Valladolid, Spain.

The Universidad de La Frontera was granted two scholarships within the Erasmus+ KA107-36589 project, that permit that an academic and a student of the UFRO Doctorate in Agri-Food Sciences and Environment study at University of Valladolid, Spain. This creates new opportunities of international linking and academic exchange for the Universidad de La Frontera.

Dr. Pablo Cornejo and the PhD student Minerva Cordovés are going to go to Spain for their semester abroad. At the same time, we hope that new spaces for international cooperation are going to open up through their work. This is what Dr. Berta Schnettler, the academic coordinator for the Erasmus Program at UFRO, pointed out. “These scholarships keep making our university more visible in the European Union, and are a continuation of the programs Erasmus Mundus Chile Lot 17, VECCEU and LINDO – this last one has been co-coordinated by our institution.”

Dr. Schnettler pointed out that Erasmus permitted to create partnerships with other universities. Therefore, she sees these scholarships as an opportunity for the UFRO and expects that they will strengthen the link with the institution in Spain, and particularly with the Doctorate in Agri-Food and Biosystems Science and Engineering. “Erasmus is a program of tradition in the EU, which has been created in order to promote synergies between universities and a mutual enrichment in different fields of action of academic work. Therefore, we expect to move forward towards a specific agreement that contemplates cooperation in the fields of research and postgraduate studies, pointing at a double-degree program.”

The director of the International Affairs Office, Pamela Leal, also appreciates the achievement: “The Erasmus Program permitted us to create new partnerships with prestigious institutions beyond our borders and these scholarships significantly strengthen the collaboration at the academic and research level. They also allow us to create links of trust, and to open new channels which also our undergraduate and postgraduate students benefit from.”

RESEARCH AND EXCHANGE

Dr. Pablo Cornejo already scheduled his stay at University of Valladolid for next October. His interests are to specify the mutual collaboration at the institutional level and to strengthen the field of research. “Regarding our doctoral program, we are in a good position within the lines we develop and, among others, we put an emphasis on structuring and materializing the field of internationalization, since it is a requirement for those programs at present.”

Dr. Cornejo is going to participate in the doctoral program in Agri-Food and Biosystems Science and Engineering. This program and the UFRO program have a common ground, which is why the UFRO is interested in realizing joint training processes. “This is a great opportunity for the advance towards a future agreement that would permit that our doctoral students work together with a well-known European university,” he explained and added that the promotion of our fields of work and research projects and the creation of links between academics of both universities are among the actions he is going to carry out.

Another purpose of his stay is to strengthen the field of research he works in. “Since both programs are very similar, the fields of work also overlap. One of them is soil sustainability, which is a very important topic at the University of Valladolid and is related to what we do with our students at the UFRO Research Center for Mycorrhizal and Agri-environmental Sustainability (Cimysa) regarding soil quality,” he stated.

Minerva Cordovés is going to spend five months in Spain, during which she will join the research team on Advanced Technologies for Sustainable Rural Development (TADRUS). “The idea is to deepen my knowledge in the use of Geographic Information Systems as a tool for socio-environmental management in the agricultural sector, and to receive further training within the field of work of this group on environmental improvement in rural areas, based on the concept of sustainable development.”

This way, this scholarship offers her the opportunity to get to know another perspective on how to address the problem and it will be an opportunity to fundamentally contribute as a PhD student whose focus lies on the balance between agricultural production and the conservation and preservation of the environment. “It is required to be capable of seeing the problems from multiple points of view in order to deliver an innovative contribution to the problem´s solution. At the same time, the opportunity to get deeper knowledge in the advanced work in other parts of the world allows not only to get to know the existing advances, but also to detect the exiting information gaps on which I can work as a PhD student.”

She added that, during the five months she is going to spend at University of Valladolid, she hopes to advance in activities linked to new technologies in agricultural production, and to learn more about topics such as risk perception in the use of these technologies in rural environments. This would be a contribution to the development of her doctoral thesis, which she wants to do in joint supervision in order to being able to get a double degree.

Written by: Jassna Sepúlveda
Communications Division UFRO
 

The building has laboratories, co-working units, a space for thesis students and offices for the engineers of the project, among others.

The Macro Faculty of Engineering at the Universidad de La Frontera inaugurated its new building with units and spaces for the academy, research and technological development.

It is located next to the Faculty of Law and Business and the Electrical Engineering Department on the Andrés Bello Campus. It has a size of about 500 square meters and has laboratories, a space for thesis students, for collaborative or co-working and offices for the engineers and specialists of the Macro Faculty, among others.

The inauguration ceremony was led by the university authorities, the Faculty of Engineering and Science, the Macro Faculty of Engineering and the Chilean Production Development Corporation (CORFO). The construction took about a year and the costs for infrastructure and equipment are over a billion Chilean pesos.

“This infrastructure is key for the training of world-class engineers,” the rector, Sergio Bravo, said. “This is the first module we are inaugurating and we hope to be able to start with the construction of the second one during this year. It is a demonstration of what we are doing as a university. We want to create a world-class doctoral program in engineering together with the University of Talca and the Bio-Bio University. We believe that there is enough academic talent for carrying out a program like this,” he stated.

The Technological Skills Manager of CORFO, Marcela Angulo, stated that the engineers have been key in the development of territories, the regions and the capacity to create economic and productive activities. “Today, we are financing three engineering schools, reaching about 50 thousand students. The technologies are highly developed and there are vertiginous changes in technology. There is no doubt that robotics and automation will change the way productive activities are conducted,” she said.
Finally the dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Science, Dr. Rodrigo Navia, said: “We want to promote interdiscipline in this building. We provide our space to electronic and electrical engineers and engineers in computer science, among others. Our intention is to create a pole of development in the training of engineers, with new and active methodologies.”

MODERN SPACE

The building has a surface of 491 m2 that are divided into three floors (the first one with 167,49m² and the other two with 161,77m² each). The first floor has a mechatronics laboratory, a work space for thesis students, a janitor´s room, toilets and a panel room. The second floor is dedicated to the students´ training and has classrooms, media labs, a recording room, toilets and a data rack.

The third and last floor has offices for the directors, administration and the engineers of the project, as well as a meeting room, a space for co-working and toilets. The different floors are connected through an elevator and stairs.

This is the first stage of a project that includes a second building of 900 m2, which will cost about 500 billion Chilean pesos.

MACRO FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

The Macro Faculty of Engineering in Chile is an academic consortium composed of the Faculties of Engineering of the University of Talca, the Bio-Bio University and the Universidad de La Frontera. It was created in 2014 within the program “A New Engineering for 2030”, promoted by CORFO.

The project (also known as “World-class Engineering at regional state Universities in the central-south of Chile”) seeks to transform the faculties into world-class institutes, where applied research, technology development and transfer, innovation and entrepreneurship are the fields of special interest until 2030.

Written by: Mauricio Antivil Morgado
Macro Faculty of Engineering

The director of Academic Quality and vice-dean of the Faculty of Law and Business (FCJE-UFRO), Dr. Raúl Allard Soto, and the director of the Law School, Dr. Pamela Mendoza Alonzo, represented the Faculty of Law and Business during their visit at American University Washington College of Law (AU-WCL).

International interdisciplinary links and the diversity that defines both institutions were the main topics of conversation with the maximum authorities of the North American university. On this occasion, the dean, Camille Nelson, ratified their intentions to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the academic year at FCJE-UFRO at the beginning of 2019 and, at the same time, took decisive steps towards an agreement that consolidates relations between both institutions and the implementation of concrete activities and projects.

In this respect, Dr. Allard said: “The idea is that Dr. Valeska Geldres, the dean of the Faculty of Law and Business at the Universidad de La Frontera, also visits the North American university during the second semester in order to agree on the final terms of the agreement.”

Besides the encounter with the maximum authorities, they had multiple meetings with the outstanding Chilean lawyer – agent for Chile in The Hague – Claudio Grossman, dean emeritus at AU-WCL, who led the university during 21 years and completed his term in 2016.

At the same time, the doctors Allard and Mendoza exchanged ideas in meetings with different members of the academic staff, such as the directors of the program AUWCL, Padideh Ala’I (International Legal Studies), Melanija Radnovic (Student Mobility), Macarena Sáez (Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law) and Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón (LL.M. in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law), and the directors Meghan Walter (Admissions Office) and Susan Bennett (Law Clinic).

On this occasion, the Faculty of Law and Business at the UFRO also started its CALI (Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) membership. CALI is a consortium of mostly US law schools that brings leading institutions in methodology of modern teaching together, according to the requirements for future professionals, and carries out annual congresses for educators in the field of Law. This year´s congress was organized by AU-WCL with topics such as ICTs, innovation and gender equity.

In this respect, the FCJE-UFRO and the representatives of Loyola Law School, Cornell Law School, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Duke University School of Law, University of Colorado Law School, etc., spoke about the incorporation of ICTs in law teaching and the future scenarios of legal services and counseling in the North American hemisphere.

Dr. Mendoza also emphasized the importance for the Law School of being part of this group and the possibility of a future agreement with AUWCL: “Our CALI membership is the result of excellent relations with the Library of the National Congress of Chile, which established our contact with them. On the other hand, if we strengthen our links with AUWCL it will permit our Law students and graduates to have concrete possibilities for carrying out a semester or their postgraduate studies in the mentioned establishment, among other benefits.”

Written by: Karen Campos
Faculty of Law and Business

The objective of the Fondecyt (Chilean Fund for Scientific and Technological Development) Project, carried out by Dr. Maria Elena Arias, a researcher at the Center of Excellence of Biotechnology on Reproduction (CEBIOR) of the UFRO, is to evaluate the effect of bovine oocyte activation.

The project is called “Impact of sperm pretreatment in the generation of transgenic bovine embryos using sperm-mediated gene transfer (ICSI-SMGT and IVF-SMGT)” and the objective is to give information about molecular mechanisms that are involved in the division of bovine embryos produced in vitro.

To obtain results, the participating researchers will use a chemical compound for the generation of embryos that act on proteins which control the cell cycle, the intracellular signaling pathways and embryo gene expression.

This new project is based on a former one led by Dr. Ricardo Felmer (CEBIOR) who found out about the success of the chemical compound anisomycin, which is an inhibitor in protein synthesis and oocytes activation after undergoing ICSI and cloning – for in vitro embryo production through these technologies.
Nevertheless, at the moment there is no information available about the capability of this inhibitor to start or promote the development of embryos that are produced by these reproductive technologies.

And this is the challenge of this study, to respond the questions made in the project and to execute an experimental design that includes exogenous activation of oocytes, bovine embryo production through unconventional assisted reproduction techniques and a series of different and modern molecular techniques for their analysis.

“We want to contribute to the knowledge about basic mechanisms in oocyte activation of farm animals and the development of bovine embryos,” Dr. Arias explained.

In addition, the group around the researcher hopes that the results will contribute to the efficiency of bovine embryo production and have a positive impact on it, especially regarding reproduction techniques, such as ICSI and nuclear transfer or cloning.

The results could have a direct impact on others species of farm animals in which exogenous activation of oocytes is used.

Written by: Lorena Espinoza
Vice-rectorate of Research and Postgraduate Affairs