Closer co-operation with seven Latin-American universities
Wim Troch
Henceforth, the relationships between K.U.Leuven and a number of Latin-American universities will intensify considerably. After a delegation from Leuven visited several universities in Latin-America this spring, the representatives of seven Latin-American universities came to Leuven at the end of October.
For two days, the members of the delegation were given the opportunity to become acquainted with Leuven’s research activities, in order to discover mutual interests. The delegation visited three doctoral schools and twelve research centres. Professor Bart De Moor, vice-rector for international policy: “This meeting is intended to result in a structural co-operation between the various universities in the future. We can look back on a very long tradition of excellent relations with institutions in Latin-America, but thus far, cooperation activities have often lacked a central axis. This will now change. Countries such as Brazil or Chile offer many promising opportunities. Everyone is looking to the East, to China, India and Japan, but some extremely interesting developments are also taking place in Latin-America. That is why we agreed to sign bilateral co-operation agreements.”
Dr. Roxana Patiño from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina adds: “There has been a relationship between my university and Leuven for some time, but from now on, this collaboration will intensify in a number of areas, especially research. The biggest difference between the current situation and the co-operation projects in the past is that the agreement is now bilateral. This means that we have selected one another as it were, from a strategic point of view. Thus, both universities can take great strides forward.”
Prof. Leopoldo de Oliveira from the Universidade de São Paulo also finds this reciprocity important. “It increases everybody’s opportunities”, he tells us. He has experienced such interuniversity co-operation personally, as he was a doctoral student in Leuven between 2004 and 2009. “Such experiences broaden your future prospects enormously. That is why these bilateral agreements will offer unique opportunities to everybody involved.”
“We are currently in the ‘sniffing out stage’, in which we become acquainted with one another”, Professor De Moor continues. “We are exploring and searching for all the opportunities. But we have chosen our partners very selectively because we are very ambitious and want to conduct the best possible research. We are also exploring the mobility of research. We will be exchanging research and researchers. In the longer term, we also plan to exchange students, but only once it has become apparent that the education at the partner universities is of at least the same standard as Leuven’s. That is another reason why we have selected only the best partners.”
One of those partners is the Universidade Estadual Paulista, of which Professor Herman Voorwald is rector. “Of course projects such as the one we have agreed upon in the past few days are extremely important to our university. We have agreements such as this one with very few other universities.”
As an added stimulus for the co-operation, K.U.Leuven is launching a Latin-American Fund; 100,000 euro a year, secured for an initial two year period. The Fund will support joint explorative projects with the seven Latin-American partner institutions. Joint proposals will be selected and financed by Leuven and the partner institution involved. When these projects have outgrown the initial explorative stage, they will be in a position to apply for more extensive international funds.
The visit was concluded with the signing of a declaration of intent by all the partner universities; a confirmation of the will to stimulate both existing and new projects.
The seven participating universities are the Universidade de São Paolo and the Universidade Estudial Paulista in Brazil, the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and the Chilean Universidad de Chile.
