Within the framework of the international consultancy aimed at generating a comprehensive Internationalization Strategy for the UC, an internal workshop was held on May 29, led by Prof. Dr. Hans de Wit and directed at our University’s central and regional authorities of the different faculties.
The workshop called “Defining an internationalization strategy for the Catholic University” and directed by the international consultant and Director of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education (CIHE), Hans de Wit, aimed to advance in the design of the Strategic Plan for Internationalization, committed to both the UC 2015-2020 Development Plan, and the Internationalization Performance Agreement.
The event, which brought together some 40 people at the UC Extension Center, was attended by President Ignacio Sánchez, the provost Guillermo Marshall, Vice-President for Research Affairs Pedro Bouchon, in addition to the 17 deans or their representatives from the faculties of the university, among other authorities.
In his inaugural speech, the UC President pointed out the importance of promoting the internationalization of the UC as part of the Development Plan to advance the commitment not only of the university itself, but with the country. He highlighted the need to generate internationalization and development projects that aspire to excellence, which include students, academics and different actors from the university and in a very special way the presence of collaborative research projects, that contribute to our comparative advantages and in the quality of our sciences and culture.
The attendees formed four work tables to discuss and present goals, objectives and activities for the long, medium and short term as continuity and final stage of the consulting and internationalization strategy of the UC conducted by Hans de Wit. Results of each roundtable were shared and compared and next steps to take were suggested.
This consultancy seeks to identify and share useful information on key elements to be considered so that UC authorities define the justification, goals, objectives, activities and indicators of the Strategy.
The Vice-President for Research Affairs, Pedro Bouchon, synthesized the main elements that UC has taken into account in the design of this Strategic Plan, through the Internationalization Agreement, hosted in the Vice-Presidency for Research Office: self-assessment exercises at the central level and of the faculties, in order to know the current state of internationalization at the institutional level, reports of benchmark visits to other higher education institutions in Latin America, the United States and Europe, in order to learn about their good practices and institutional structures to manage their internationalization processes.
All to understand and internalize within the UC what the process of the Plan that will contain the Internationalization Strategy of the Universidad Católica consists of and how it develops.
“This workshop was extremely important because it brought together the common effort of the different actors, Deans, Vice-Deans, central administration, Vice-Presidents and President Office, around the theme and strategy of the internationalization of the university,” said the international consultant, de Wit. “That they work together with a vision and commitment to improve the quality of the internationalization of the university and the quality of what they are doing from a Catholic point of view but also from the point of view of a high-quality university of research and extension teaching like the one UC has, is extremely transcendental ”.