The University of La Serena was the host university for the First Meeting of Researchers of the State Universities of Chile.

Researchers from the study houses that make up the CUECH Research Network met for two days at the University of La Serena to participate in the First Meeting of Researchers of the State Universities of Chile, where they worked on associative projects in strategic areas for the country.

The activity of the CUECH Research Network had a high attendance, with the presence of 14 vice-rectors and 58 researchers who represented their respective universities. Mónica Quiroz, project director of the CUECH Network Framework Agreement, was also present.

The meeting, which took place from Thursday, November 30 to Friday, December 1, aimed to work on associative projects in strategic areas such as: Sustainable habitat; Energy; Interculturality, diversity and inclusion; Education; Healthy aging; and Mining.

At the Sustainable Habitat table, where researchers from practically all CUECH universities participated, it was agreed to address the topics of sustainability of anthropic systems, sustainability of ecosystems and, finally, characterization and projections of the climate in Chile. Among the objectives presented were the analysis of the potential of interdisciplinary collaborative postgraduate programs in the proposed topics; the execution of a Workshop of the CUECH University Network on sustainability; application to international open access data networks; define research topics, formulate and apply for network projects; and define topics, writing and sending manuscripts for online publications.

While at the Energy table, researchers identified several study topics that are currently addressed by one or several study houses at a time. These topics are life cycles and development of energy materials, territorial characterization and sustainability of energy sources, renewable energies and water resources, innovation for the management of maintenance and operation of the system, analysis of distributed management system models, residential solutions for power generation and energy efficiency.

To delve deeper into these topics jointly between researchers belonging to different CUECH universities, the experts proposed the following objectives for 2018: to develop common lines of research and innovation; promote inter-university collaboration for the use of infrastructure and equipment; articulate academic faculty for the development of human capital (technical and advanced); and share good practices and knowledge between teams from different universities.

For their part, 8 researchers participated in the Mining table, who considered the search for a leap in national development from commodities to value-added products as a fundamental aspect. The objectives set were: to collect information on mining, link network research in companies, and disseminate inter-university capabilities and associativity.

At the Education table, made up of 12 researchers, the general objective was “analysis and systematization of FID trends at the level of public policies in training curricula.” In addition, the specific objectives were set to “Characterize the critical nodes and contributions in the FID from public policy in higher education institutions” and “Describe the trends in the curricular organization of the FID by identifying critical nodes and contributions.” The 2018 work plan includes the preliminary collection of information for the FID state of the art, the holding of two meetings for debate, analysis and systematization; the preparation of reports and dissemination for public discussion; the official delivery of results to key public entities of the FID in the country; and the creation of a research core projected to 2020.

On the other hand, the 13 researchers from the Diversity, Multiculturality and Inclusion panel based their discussion on the problem of how to contribute to the development of an inclusive society in the full exercise of rights, through transdisciplinary research from the State universities. Among the objectives set by the table are: contributing to the design and evaluation of public policies based on research on diversity and inclusion; reveal the social practices of exclusion towards marginalized groups, investigating the intervening variables; and contribute to the understanding and co-construction of universities as active organizations to advance diversity and inclusion.

Regarding the Healthy Aging table, the 10 researchers who formed it based their discussion on extreme medicine, health and diet as factors that surround and intervene in aging. This group defined the following actions to be carried out: characterization of human and physical resources, thematic table meeting, Workshop with experts, and academic events.