Universidad Católica del Maule is Awarded New Funding to Promote International Linkages

enero 2, 2025

A total of seven projects will benefit from the National Agency for Research and Development through the FOVI call.

Two deans and five outstanding academics will be in charge of the projects that were awarded resources in the competition “Promotion of International Linkages for Research Institutions” (FOVI) at the Universidad Católica del Maule.

The call, which belongs to the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID), promotes the participation of local scientists in global alliances.

“The FOVIs take charge of a strategy that we have implemented as an institution and that is to recognize the tremendous potential that the generation of international networks has and to participate in spaces where today discussions are held at the highest academic level, safeguarding at the same time that all this contribution materializes concretely in a significant boost to regional development, in all its areas,” said the general director of Linkage of the UCM, Jorge Burgos.

“We recognize that the possibility of embodying the institutional seal of a Catholic regional university,” he said,” committed to the development of the inhabitants of Maule, is strengthened by generating this type of alliance. The link with the environment and internationalization, both being a means to continuously improve our institutional functions, allow us to address global challenges in local contexts”.

In a first call for proposals, the campus obtained funding for five projects. Due to the activation of the waiting list, two other proposals received funding. The initiatives cover topics as diverse as sustainable agriculture and English language teaching and learning.

“Mastering the English language allows access to specialized knowledge, to the development of technology, to apply for better job opportunities, among others. In this sense, not mastering the language can be associated with the conception of being left behind; which implies that not all students would have the same opportunities for access to education and development or social mobility. More importantly, this research addresses the latest proposals delivered by MINEDUC in 2021 and 2024, which establishes that English should no longer be learned and/or taught as a foreign language, but as an international language, in an intercultural context, with the purpose of promoting the integration of students to a multicultural world”, said one of the beneficiaries of the FOVI, María Sumonte, PhD in Pedagogical Research, regarding the area that her project will address.

Victor Monzón and María Fonseca, deans of the Faculties of Basic Sciences and Social and Economic Sciences, respectively, Claudio Cerón of the Faculty of Education Sciences, David Zabala of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Tomás Bolaño of the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences and Radha Pyarasani of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the Universidad Católica del Maule (CIEAM) will also carry out initiatives.

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