At the beginning of the academic year 2018, students of the Faculty of Engineering and Science of the Universidad de La Frontera got to know the opportunities the FICA-IAESTE program offers for students who want to spend their practical training period abroad.

In a workshop the students were able to get to know the implications and benefits of this initiative which is a collaboration between the Faculty of Engineering and Science (FICA) and the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE).

Germany, Colombia, Spain, Brazil, India and other countries are the destinations our students can travel to within this program. It is made for future professionals who are motivated to improve their academic training, to grow as a person and to visualize the options the labor market offers.

In that spirit, the IAESTE-Chile coordinator, Valentina Carrasco, shared information about the processes, requirements, financing and the application deadlines with them. Apart from that, Jorge Barra, a Civil Industrial Engineering student with specialization in Mechanics, was present to tell the students about his practical training experience in Panama.

For more information about this program that counts with the support of the Practical Training Management Unit of the UFRO Faculty of Engineering and Science, the UFRO Student Mobility Office, the Macro Faculty of Engineering and Temuco UniverCiudad, please send an email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the Faceboook page: IAESTEChile. If you want to get to know the available offer, please click on: http://fica.ufro.cl/practicas-de-estudio/?5=$6#-6.

Regional company stands out because of an innovative agricultural product.

Paula Aguilera, Doctor in Natural Resources from the Universidad de La Frontera, presents her company MycoNativa, a research company which today positions itself as the only project of the Araukanía Region that obtained the Corfo (Production Development Corporation) Capital Semilla grant in the second call of 2017.

The company MycoNativa developed the first inoculant bioproduct in Temuco, elaborated on the base of native Chilean fungus (micorrizas). The benefits are significant, since these fungi improve plant growth and protect them from different conditions, such as drought, diseases and soil contamination. They also help the nutrients to move from soil to plant and increase the volume of absorbed water. This system benefits different types of plants – of agricultural interest and ornamental – and even contribute to ecological restoration of degraded and contaminated soils.

The founder of this project expressed her interest in giving shape to MycoNativa. “In our family agriculture is an important pillar and from this point of view, we have always been interested in promoting the use of technologies that favor the environment and agricultural productivity, especially all those that can deliver quality to the final product, an added value and a better functionality in the end. Having done the specialization training in countries that commonly use this technology, and research together with companies of our Region, we were anxious to build this company,” she explained.

BIOPRODUCT

MycoNativa works in three main areas: technology, research and commercial management; together with a network of researchers and specialists. This bioproduct, which is in its first phase, is focused on the implementation of a low-scale experimental station, the validation technique at the plant nursery level and the beginning of commercial management.

The entrepreneur started her initiative with an application to the call for University Research Evaluation (VIU), supported by the Technology Transfer Unit (UTT) of the UFRO, where she had been incorporated in the Scaling Program for Technology-based Companies, an initiative created by professionals of the UTT and by the incubator, working since the last three years.

Paula Aguilera emphasized the work she has been doing for her project and said that “IncubatecUfro has accompanied me from the orientation in my research work to the application of this technology, in the preparation of topics related to the business area, the facilitation of work spaces in the University and the search of funding for this project.”

One of the next challenges is to take the production forward to the volume of a set of bioproducts based on these beneficial fungi and also to strengthen the area of training and services.

During his recent research trip to Europe, the director of the Doctorate in Communication, Dr. Carlos Del Valle, created important alliances with universities in the UK, the Netherlands and Spain.

The partnership with the University of Groningen in the Netherlands is one of the most important alliances of the Doctorate in Communication. This link made it possible that five academic staff members are going to be part of the program as visiting lecturers and as co-directors in the doctoral theses.

“The most important fact of this cooperation is that we initiated the formalization process for Double Degrees at both Universities for the Doctorate”, he said.

In addition to that, the Universidad de La Frontera also just started alliances with the two most important Doctoral Programs in Communication in Argentina. The first one with the Faculty of Journalism and Social Communication at the Universidad de La Plata and the second one with the Faculty of Communication Science at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. These alliances will make the exchange of teachers and students possible, especially during the thesis elaboration and for joint work in teaching.

At the same time, it has other important Cooperation Agreements oriented to the specific field of Communication and Cultural Studies, such as the International Center for Advanced Studies in Communication for Latin America (CIESPAL); the Department of Journalism at the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain; the Department of Communication and Information Science at the University of Porto, Portugal; the Institute of Language and Communication Science at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland; the Faculty of Political Science, Sociology and Communication at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; and the Scientific-Academic International Cooperation Network, Red INTER-ES, which is led by the Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.

In addition to that, it has relationships with the most important academic organizations in the field of communication at the Latin-American level, such as the Latin-American Association of Researchers in Communications (ALAIC), the Latin Union for Political Economics of Information, Communication and Culture (ULEPICC) and the Latin-American Confederation of Scientific and Academic Associations in Communication (CONFIBERCOM).

PURPOSE

The objective of the Doctorate in Communication is to train high-level researchers who contribute to innovative solutions to communicational and cultural problems with an interdisciplinary focus. This is why the first Doctorate in Communication was created between the two most important universities in the south of Chile.

RESEARCH FELLOW

The new distinction of Dr. Carlos del Valle is Research Fellow at the Department of European Languages and Cultures of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. During his trip, he taught students of the specialties Language and Society, Culture and Literature, and Politics and Society. He also participated as a lecturer in the Winter School of the University of Groningen. He held the conference called: “Critique to the Civilizing Project at Southern America: Modes and strategies for the production and subjection of the other”, within the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Project financed by the European Union. The activity was made for researchers and students of universities in Europe, Asia and the USA.

Afterwards, he held a conference at the Newcastle University, UK, addressed to different researchers of the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Two of the academic staff members joint the team as co-directors of future students´ theses to start with.

FOUNDATION PROGRAM

The Doctorate in Communication of the UFRO is a founding partner of the Network for Foresight Postgraduate Studies in Communication in Latin America. The purpose of this network is to create strengthening actions for postgraduate programs in communication, especially doctoral programs, at Latin American universities.

The Ceremony of the XXXVII. Anniversary of the Universidad de La Frontera and the Opening of the Academic Year 2018 took place at the Aula Magna.

“Because of the intentions and ambitions, the Universidad de La Frontera is not only the result of the work of the cloister. It has been knitted by thousands of wishes, enriched by hundreds of dreams and driven by the energy of hundreds of men and women who live and work in and outside of this region.” With these words, the Rector, Sergio Bravo, gave a tone of acknowledgement and gratitude to the ceremony in which the 37th Institutional Anniversary has been celebrated.

Members of the University Community, authorities and representatives of civil and military organizations came together at the Aula Magna to review the institutional history and the promising present and to acknowledge that the accomplishments reached during these 37 years have been possible thanks to the spirit and the determination in the first years and the capacities and talents of who, then and today, are part of the University.

“Tradition and change is the direction we are heading for. If the retrospective view permits us to contemplate with astonishment what we have built, the view of the present confirms that our energy and perseverance is still intact. To this enduring link to the past, we have to sum the acknowledgement and estimation of the present personified by the ones who give life to the institution and make it progress, despite the uncertainty”, the Rector emphasized.

MEDAL FOR ACADEMIC TRAJECTORY

At the ceremony of the 37th UFRO Anniversary and the opening of the academic year 2018, the Medals for Academic Trajectory at the Universidad de La Frontera have been awarded, an important acknowledgement that is given to those who stand out for their work and contribution to the institutional development.

This year, Guillermo Soza Contreras and René Cifuentes Bobadilla have been awarded.

Guillermo Soza Contreras is a physician (University of Chile), specialist in pediatrics and infectious diseases. He has been working as a teacher at the Health Department (University of Chile, office in Temuco), as an associate professor at the Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery Department of the Faculty of Medicine at the UFRO and as the director of the Department just mentioned between 1981 and 1994. Between 1981-1994 and 2010-2016, he has been working as the director of the Program of Specialization in Pediatrics.

René Cifuentes Bobadilla is an executing mechanical engineer at the State Technical University and a mechanical engineer at the Universidad Austral of Chile. He has a Master´s Degree in Engineering of the Technical University Federico Santa María. His specialties are hydroelectric power plants and clean energies and he has done several postgraduate courses at Universities in Mexico and Switzerland. He was the director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a member of the Governing Board of the UFRO.

MASTER CLASS: EVALUATE TO IMPROVE

The traditional Master Class of the opening of the Academic Year at the UFRO 2018, was held by Dr. Ricardo Reich Albertz, assessor for Higher Education of the Ministry of Education.

His topic was the central evaluation as an instrument for permanent improvement. During his exposition, Reich emphasized the enormous advance the University has obtained during the last years, in the national and international context, delivering background and benchmarking information that permitted the assistants to calibrate the global results of particular efforts by knowing the way in which scientific productivity, the quality of the cloister, the students´ profile or the university outreach are entwined and form a University of Worldwide Prestige.