For the first time, the UFRO entered this ranking that evaluates the quality of young universities (50 years or less) and is in third place among the Chilean universities.

This is another recognition of the quality and prestige of the Universidad de La Frontera. On June, 6th of 2018, the Times Higher Education (THE) Rankings published the Young University Rankings 2018 that places the UFRO in the range 201-250 at the international level and in third place among the Chilean institutions that have been judged.

This THE ranking judges the best universities in the world that exist for 50 years or less. This year, it included 250 institutions in 55 different countries. The Universidad de La Frontera entered for the first time, and is in third place out of the five Chilean universities that have been considered.

In this regard, the rector Sergio Bravo is proud of the incorporation of the UFRO in this ranking, since THE is of high international prestige and known for its complete and reliable measurements. “It is the first time that we have been considered by this ranking and we landed in third place among the Chilean young universities. This is an important and significant achievement which we should be proud of. At the same time, it should encourage us to keep working, with confidence in our indicators”, he pointed out.

This ranking considers 13 performance indicators – the same ones as the THE World University Rankings – in universities of 50 years or less and analyses aspects such as teaching, research, quotes, international outlook, etc. The methodology has been carefully selected and recalibrated with adjustments regarding the weighting in reputation, in order to reflect the special qualities of the youngest universities.

VIEW TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION YOUNG UNIVERSITY RANKINGS 2018

More than 40 students and academics attended the conference the Spanish doctor, Cristina Calvo, who, at the moment, is also working with a research group of LICSA-UFRO, held.

The Laboratory of Applied Social Sciences of the Scientific Social Science Nucleus and Humanities, in cooperation with the Faculty of Engineering and Science and the Faculty of Law and Business at the Universidad de La Frontera, offered this conference to students and academics in order to get to know and analyze the latest marketing tendencies.

This initiative is the result of the wish to create a space where to introduce the students into the analysis of the new markets and strategies for the development of brands and companies. This is why Cristina Calvo, an academic with a PhD in economics from the University of A Coruña in Spain, came to the UFRO.

The participation of the Spanish expert was financed by the University A Coruña and now she is going to be part of a research group of LICSA-UFRO during her postdoctoral stay at our university for a month. The objective is to create a joint project with the other academics.

CONFERENCE

This is the first time Dr. Cristina Calvo holds a conference at the UFRO and the aim is to present relevant aspects in marketing, such as business communication or product and service strategies and distribution in today’s market.

Sustainable marketing is the tendency of companies in Europe, since the society and environment benefit from it. Regarding this, the Spanish academic claimed that “the tendency is that, if you want a product to be accepted, you have to offer a product that respects its environment. In Chile, some brands that stand for sustainability are well positioned.”

In this respect, the LICSA coordinator, Dr. Sonia Salvo, pointed out that “the students deserve to go to a conference held by a world-class expert with experience in marketing, an expert who – in this case – worked for about ten years in this field, for the brand Carolina Herrera.”

LICSA COOPERATIONS

During these years, LICSA-UFRO organized several conferences with experts in different fields, such as business, statistics, business strategies, etc. The precise objective of this series of presentations is that the students get an insight into the different areas of applied social sciences.

The UFRO maintains collaborative work with the largest and most important Astronomic Observatory in the world, since 2014.

The visit of directors and students of the Universidad de La Frontera at ALMA, the largest and most important astronomic observatory in the world, is an important event in the cooperation that lasts since 2014.

The delegation was led by the dean of the UFRO Faculty of Engineering and Science, Rodrigo Navia; the Outreach coordinator, Iván Velásquez; the director of the Program in Physical Engineering, Robert Guzmán; and the academic of the Department of Physical Science, Pablo Díaz.

It has been the second visit of directors of the university at ALMA, and their partnership serves for the development of initiatives and academic and professional collaboration. At present, the collaboration focuses on the field of big data (software) and will be extended to different fields of engineering (hardware), scientific operations, academic development and, in medium-term, technology transfer.

“This cooperation with ALMA opens a new field for us, for internships and perhaps future jobs for engineers of different fields of expertise. Therefore, it is a field in which our students can acquire important skills for their future”, Rodrigo Navia, the dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Science, explained.

He added that “we will elaborate a plan for the next two years, which will be reviewable each year, in which we will extend the collaboration spectrum we had so far and which basically focused on computer science. We are thinking about fields like electronics, mechatronics, physics engineering and telematics. We want more students to be able to do their internship at ALMA. Eventually, this plan will also include the possibility for postgraduate students to do internships there.”

EXPERIENCE AND OPPURTUNITIES

The delegation also consisted of ten students of the Physical Engineering, Civil Industrial Engineering with specialization in Computer Engineering and Electronic Engineering programs, who started to work in the field of astroengineering, an UFRO initiative led by the academic Patricio Galeas.

“The visit was a tremendous opportunity in order to see how the work at the international level, regarding infrastructure, technology and human resources, works”, Felipe Garrido, student in Physical Engineering, said. “ALMA is a model to aspire, no matter which path we take or the resources we have. This experience marks the future for the ones who want to follow a path towards cutting-edge research and engineering applied on science or technology”, he added.

According to that, Iván Aburto, student in Civil Industrial Engineering with specialization in Computer Engineering, said that “it was a unique experience, since we were able to share with professionals who guided us and explained some of the tasks they regularly work on. Here in Chile, there is a wide range of working options for engineers in the different fields. Opportunities exist, you just have to know how to find and make use of them”, he assured.

“It is important to emphasize the quality of our visit, as well as the politeness and deference the ALMA experts treated our delegation with, while receiving us and showing us around the installations”, Navia concluded.

Written by: Mauricio Antivil Morgado
Macro Faculty of Engineering

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.