At the Universidad de La Frontera the year 2019 was marked by high scientific productivity and an increase in the number of awarded projects financed by external funds. The UFRO is recognized as one of the best complex universities in Chile.

It was a year of excellent results. 2019 culminates for the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) with 13 Regular Fondecyt (Chilean National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development) and 16 Postdoctoral Fondecyt Projects awarded. Among the regional public and state universities, this is a privileged position with important achievements that turn the UFRO into one of the most prestigious complex universities in Chile.

For the Vice-rector for Research and Graduate Studies, Dr. Renato Hunter Alarcón, this result is one of the products of the commitment and dedication of the academics of this educational institution and the actions implemented during the last year in order to progress in terms of scientific productivity and awarded projects with priority research lines for the Araucanía Region and Chile.

“We achieved to improve our indicators of scientific productivity and the number of awarded projects compared to 2018, what makes us proud and puts us into an excellent position among Chilean research universities. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our researchers and academic staff, we are one of the regional universities with most awarded Fondecyt Projects,” said the university authority and added that the year 2019 culminated for the UFRO as a solid year regarding research and graduate studies, “taking into account that we also achieved to accredit 100% of our doctoral programs.”

The research director, Dr. César Arriagada Escamilla, takes this achievement as a motivation to keep improving in 2020. “We will stay on our path and keep trying to increase the number of awarded projects. In this case the number of awarded Regular Fondecyt projects increased from 12 to 13 and the number of Postdoctoral Fondecyt projects increased from 5 to 16 awarded projects this year.” Besides, this year the number of ISI-WoS publications reached an historical number of 550 publications during 2019.

The university authorities complimented the researchers and academic staff who made this important result possible. The winners in the Regular Fondecyt project competition are the doctors León Bravo Ramírez, Marcela Calabi Floody, Ángel Carocca Becerra, Paula Cartes Indo, Mara Cea Lemus, Paola Durán Cuevas, Ricardo Felmer Dorner, Germán Gálvez García, Milko Jorquera Tapia, Pamela Leal Rojas, Pablo Meza Narváez, Mónica Rubilar Díaz, and Carolina Shene de Vidts.

The winners in the Postdoctoral Fondecyt project competition are the doctors Daniel Basualto Alarcón, Fernanda Cid Alda, Hannah Demond, Fabián Dietrich, Jorge González Villagra, Héctor Herrera Echeverría, Montserrat Hevia Hoffmann, Ignacio Jofré Fernandez, Emilio Navarrete Sanhueza, Javiera Parada Cárcamo, Sofía Pontigo Seguel, Krishnendu Pramanik, Marcela Quilaqueo Gutiérrez, Carlos Reyes Velásquez, Alejandro Salinas Vaccaro, and Rubén Sánchez Sabate.