Agreement between the Ministry of Science, the Regional Government and Fomento Los Ríos will allow the training of master’s degrees and doctorates with a focus on the needs of the region

The program seeks to respond to the needs detected by the Seremi de Ciencia de la Macrozona Sur; the Regional Government of Los Ríos and also the potentialities identified by Fomento Los Ríos so that the insertion of the scholarship holders is effective and contributes to both the public and private sectors.

Decentralization and insertion of advanced human capital in the territory. These are two of the principles for which a collaboration agreement was signed between the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, the Los Ríos Regional Government (GORE) and the Los Ríos Development Committee.

This is a pilot program that will allow the insertion of doctors and masters in industry and the public sector that was born as an opportunity to solve the shortcomings in the CTCI ecosystem, taking into account the territorial characteristics of each of the regions of the southern macrozone. .

Carolina Gainza, undersecretary of the Ministry of Science, explains that the objective of this agreement “is to improve the productivity and competitiveness of public and private institutions, through the insertion of researchers and specialized professionals in the territory.” “One of the tasks of our ministry is decentralization. The solutions to problems in the regions cannot be defined in the capital, they have to arise from conversations and diagnoses of priorities from the regions themselves and this agreement is an example of this”, she added.

In this first stage, the financing of 10 master’s and three doctoral scholarships is proposed through the Innovation Fund for Competitiveness of the Regional Government of Los Ríos, an effort that will imply around 250 million pesos (tariff, maintenance and expenses for thesis execution).

The Regional Governor (s), Paz de La Maza highlighted that, “we are making available an instrument that the Regional Government has, the Innovation Fund for Competitiveness, in its competitive line, which allows financing postgraduate professionals who can later be retained as talent in the Los Ríos Region, both in the private and public sectors. What we want is to generate a virtuous equation, which allows us to make different public instruments available as an incentive so that this type of high-level professionals can develop in our region, making their learning available to the needs of the territory”.

Regarding the themes of the scholarships, these must be in accordance with the productive lines and must be in accordance with the productive development strategy of the region, to contribute or strengthen the priority areas defined by the GORE in the Strategic Axis Management of the Knowledge and Sustainable Economic Development.

For the executive director of the Fomento Los Ríos Committee, Pablo Díaz, this agreement is important because “the evidence shows that when companies incorporate advanced human capital, they develop new responses and new alternatives, that is, they innovate. And there we will play the role of providing the necessary incentives to share the risk that innovation means for companies, and we will make available calls that allow companies that enter the program to apply for innovation funds to execute those ideas and improvements that will surely They will appear.”

“As MinCiencia, we contribute with our evaluation capabilities through supervision and we are also part of the scholarship selection process, while the Productive Development Committee, Fomento Los Ríos, commits that once the pilot is running and there are theses students inserted in the public and private sectors, offer instruments that encourage private ones to receive and hire thesis students as a way to improve insertion”, explained Maite Castro, Seremi de Ciencia de la MZ SUR.

This program seeks to promote territoriality and the close relationship between industry and academia. The participation of these three institutions (GORE Los Ríos, Fomento Los Ríos, and MinCiencia) is essential in the task of democratizing scientific knowledge for sustainable and inclusive development in the territory.

The president of the CORE Productive Development Commission, Juan Taladriz, and the Regional Councilors Ximena Castillo and Matías Fernández also participated in the event. In this regard, the president of the commission stated that, “as a collegiate body, for some time we have been promoting the incentive of scholarships for professionals in the region. It makes us very happy to see how this agreement will allow progress in this line, where there will be an absolute will on our part to finance projects in this area”.