UCL President and Pro-Provost for the Americas visit Brazil

As well as attending the third Universia Vice-Chancellors Meeting in Rio, Brazil, where Santander Universities announced 700 million Euro investment in universities until 2018; UCL President and Provost, Professor Michael Arthur and Pro-Provost to the Americas, Professor Alejandro Madrigal, met with some of Latin America’s top universities and organisations to discuss opportunities for partnership and collaboration in higher education.

Engagements included meeting with the Rector of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) to deepen the developing institutional relationship between UCL and PUC through the Engineering 2030 Programme.

The Engineering 2030 initiative provides funding from the Chilean Economic Development Agency (Corfo) to universities that plan transforming their Engineering Schools into world-class entities, with a particular focus on the four pillars that are increasingly important in the engineering field: applied research, technology development and transfer, innovation and entrepreneurship.

UCL formally supported PUC’s successful proposal and over the coming months will explore further opportunities for working under this partnership.

Another highlight was a meeting with the Rector of Universidade de São Paulo (USP), the oldest university in Brazil and one of the most prestigious higher education and research institutions in Latin America, to discuss a potential high-level relationship between USP and UCL.

A final meeting took place with the President of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), one of the world’s largest universities with an excellent international reputation, and a long-standing collaborator of UCL.

Discussions spanned renewing a highly-successful research agreement in biomedical and life sciences, as well as exploring new subject areas for potential collaboration and partnership.

To discuss UCL’s current links and on going plan for the Latin America region, contact Professor Madrigal at a.madrigal@ucl.ac.uk or Julia Dawson, Assistant Director at the Office for International Affairs at julia.dawson@ucl.ac.uk