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