Internationalisation of research in higher education

Project director: María Jacqueline Rojas Ríos, Universidad de Playa Ancha. Deputy coordinator: Marcel Thezá Manríquez, Universidad de Los Lagos.

Funding: State Universities Strengthening Plan. Duration: 36 months, 2026 to 2028.

The project continues RED24992 and moves from its initial character towards embedding permanent institutional capacities. It brings together the universities of the Consortium of State Universities of Chile, aiming to widen participation from the current thirteen institutions to the eighteen in the system, with PIIE and IESED-Chile as national partners and InterRed, led by the OUI, as international partner.

Its diagnosis warns that internationalisation processes now face unprecedented scrutiny regarding their relevance and permanence, in a context of growing hostility towards the very idea of internationalisation. To this is added the persistent absence of a shared strategic vision among state universities: although Law 21.094 promotes collaboration, this has not yet translated into systematic international cooperation strategies.

The general objective is to strengthen cooperative inter-university relations in research and advanced training in higher education within the inter-American context. To that end it proposes inter-American academic collaboration initiatives, including a diploma course on research internationalisation with a gender perspective and internationally co-authored publications; mobility through the Inter-American School of Higher Education, postdoctoral stays and short research visits; and an international information space with an inter-American observatory and an open semantic web.

Gender equity runs through the whole work plan, from team composition to the selection of participants in doctoral and postdoctoral training.