Get to know the VRID: Special programs

“The research programs supported by our Vice-Rectory are internal structures of the University, thought in an associative way, as bets around themes in which there is or is desired to generate potential to reach, in the short and medium term, standards that allow its positioning at the national level”, as defined by the Vice-Rector for Research and Development of the University of Concepción, Dr. Andrea Rodríguez Tastetsthe function of the Special Programs financed with resources administered from this division.

These are four initiatives that share a disciplinary perspective to address a wide variety of problems and that take charge of current and urgent challenges. One of them is the Program Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Mental Health (NEPSAM) which seeks to consolidate a line of interdisciplinary research that covers the clinical application in mental health in Chile, in areas such as population aging, neurophysiology and cognition, biological processes to improve brain function, addiction to alcohol and drugs, and the bases of human behavior.

“NEPSAM was created as a tool to stimulate conversation, discussion, learning and teaching in the area of ​​mental health”, explains its director, Dr. Luis Aguayo Hernandez, academic of the Department of Physiology of the Faculty of Biological Sciences. In this sense, the holding of annual congresses, seminars, symposiums and other similar activities fulfill “various purposes, such as conversing with leading researchers in the area and, in addition, doing local dissemination work towards professionals in the health area, who are interested in the subject of mental health”, he added.

Meanwhile, the Science, Development and Society in Latin America Research Program (CIDESAL) addresses development as a historical and cultural process of the 20th century, with a focus on those countries that were defined as ‘third world’, including a perspective on the emergence in recent decades of various intellectual, political and territorial movements and manifestations that promote other ways of conceiving and implementing development processes in Latin America.

“We are working on an analysis of the past and the present, as well as the future perspectives that this Latin America has with all its political, social, economic complexities, etc.” details its director, Dr. Paula Quijada Prado, academic from the Department of Geography of the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Geography. The research is based on an interdisciplinary, process perspective, pointing to the link with other research groups and centers or programs, both in Latin America and in other latitudes. “There are many other groups from Europe and the United States that are also working from the global north, with issues of our and sub-region”, explains Dr. Quijada.

On the other hand, the Antarctic and Subantarctic Science Program (PCAS) is directed by the Dr. Lohengrin Cavieres González, academic of the Department of Botany of the Faculty of Natural and Oceanographic Sciences. It is an initiative that seeks to collect a long institutional tradition of the University of Concepción in the associated topics, in which, for the last 20 years, it has been the institution with the largest number of disciplines investigating the frozen continent.

Finally, in October 2022 the program was created Interdisciplinary Science for the Mountains of the Southern Andes (CIMASur), through UdeC Decree No. 2022 – 131. This initiative is made up of a multidisciplinary team of researchers, in order to coordinate and promote active participation in research and dissemination projects that allow the creation and assessment of fundamental and interdisciplinary knowledge. Its manager, the Dr. Alfonso Fernandez Rivera, He is an academic at the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Geography and will be next Wednesday, January 25, from 7:00 p.m. in the program “Señales del Futuro”, broadcast by Radio UdeC and in format podcasts on Spotify.