Thanks to the MITACS-Canada programme and its agreement with the universities of CRUCH, Catalina Valdebenito Gallardo and Martina Campos Torres are able to spend 12 weeks as research assistants for different research projects at Canadian universities, under the supervision of outstanding researchers.

With great joy, Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) received the great news that two of the seven scholarships of the MITACS Globalink Research Internship (GRI) programme in Canada go to the UFRO undergraduate students Catalina Valdebenito Gallardo of the Law programme and Martina Campos Torres of the programme in Pedagogy in History, Geography and Civic Education. This scholarship gives them the opportunity to spend 12 weeks (between May and October) as research assistants at Canadian universities.

Catalina Valdebenito Gallardo, a student of the Law programme of UFRO, will use this scholarship to collaborate in the project “Embracing Indigenous Rights via the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, AMDRIP and International Trade Agreements” of the academic Bradford Morse, at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops (British Columbia). “I will investigate the progress of the rights of indigenous people in each country and the compliance with the corresponding treaties. It is a great challenge, since this will be the continuation of a project which the same professor started with another exchange student last year,” she explained.

At the same time, Martina Campos Torres of the Pedagogy in History, Geography and Civic Education programme of UFRO will work together with the academic Janet Okoko of University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) on the project “Strengthening Instructional Leadership Capacity for Practitioner-Oriented and Technology-Mediated Educational Research to Support Student Learning”.

The students commented that they are very grateful for all the support they received in this process by the university and especially by those who are part of their study programmes. “My professors and the director of the programme were really helpful, so I was able to finish the semester earlier, in order to start my stay without worries. I wanted to apply for this scholarship, because it is rather uncommon to find one that is dedicated to research, which is my field of interest for my future graduate studies. I wanted to take this opportunity to learn how to do research, since we learn about it in theory, but I think that it will be quite different to apply this knowledge in practice”, Martina Campos said.

For Claudia Villagrán, the person in charge of outgoing mobility at the International Affairs Office, this opportunity is very important for the whole university community of UFRO, since it directly contributes to UFROs internationalisation process. In this context, she pointed out: “We want to support our students in the process of application for existing scholarships, funding and mobility programmes, because we are convinced that, especially in this case, it is a tremendous opportunity for both of them. They both received a lot of support by the university and especially by their programme directors, who fully supported them in this process previous to their stays”.

It is also worth mentioning that the scholarship of the Globalink Research Internship programme is worth about 12,000 Canadian Dollars and financed by MITACS and the universities of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH). It provides real opportunities of growth regarding research and innovation, and allows students to spend three months supporting scientific research in the fields of science, engineering, mathematics, humanities and social sciences.