Postgraduate Network unites four universities

Project includes conducting research and university linkage. The goal is to offer doctorates.

 

The four universities of the city: University of Cuenca, Azuay (UDA), Catholic and Salesian Polytechnic (UPS) have formed the University Postgraduate Network, with the purpose of joining their resources to implement research programs and fourth level studies, transfer of technology, services and projects related to the community.

 

Yesterday the agreement to form the network was signed; it was signed, in order, by the rectors of the houses of studies mentioned: Pablo Vanegas and Francisco Salgado; and the Vice Chancellors, Ana Luisa Guijarro and Luis Tobar.

 

Salgado, when opening the event, stressed that this shows that in the city lives an academic community for the cooperation of their universities and expressed their desire that joint doctoral studies soon be carried out, because "what has been done is a act of confidence ", aimed at working together to strengthen what already exists".

 

Guijarro, academic vice-rector of the Catholic University, explained that the initiative has taken its first steps. The goal of the network is precisely to offer doctoral studies, that is, to train professionals with a Ph.D. degree, in principle in three areas: health sciences, engineering and education. The network will be a transformative axis of higher education, he said.

 

For this purpose, the four universities would contribute their capacities and strengths in teaching staff, laboratories, campus and infrastructure: dental clinics, clinics and other means.

 

"There is a very high expectation, the academic heads of the universities have initiated preliminary dialogues to design the postgraduate proposals in order to propose them to the Higher Education Council for approval," he said. The project to the network includes carrying out research and humanitarian links.

 

Pablo Vanegas affirmed that, in this context, universities seek to contribute to the development of the country, for which the interaction of them, as actors, is important: to develop their potentialities and at the same time postgraduate studies is a challenge and a commitment to society, that will lead them to cooperate and, at the same time, to achieve their individual goals. Tobar stressed that the network formed will be an opportunity to carry out Master's and Ph.D programs that, breaking individualism, provide social solutions.

 

Carmita Álvarez, president of the Commission of Universities and Polytechnic Schools of the Higher Education Council (CES), attended as witness the signing of the agreement, which she described as "the right answer to the call of social and productive sectors of the community; promote academic and postgraduate networks to produce knowledge and train professionals, which is a challenge ".