The Postgraduate Commission is committed to strengthening this area in the CRUCH universities.

The meeting brought together representatives of the institutions that make up the Council of Rectors, who addressed topics such as student mobility, results of scholarship calls during 2021 and internationalization strategies for postgraduate programs.

Iñigo Díaz, president of the National Accreditation Commission, also participated.

At the University of Chile, the Postgraduate Commission of the Council of Rectors met to reflect on and guide approaches and challenges regarding the new postgraduate accreditation procedures; the proposal for a postgraduate student mobility plan between CRUCH universities and internationalization strategies for these postgraduate programs; the results of scholarship programs during 2012; and finally, the definition of priorities and methodologies for the development of this Commission, where essentially the interest in joining forces to strengthen the postgraduate area in the Council's institutions converged.

Iñigo Díaz, president of the National Accreditation Commission (CNA), and a guest at the meeting, opened the meeting to detail the new procedures for postgraduate accreditation provisions of the National Accreditation Commission in order to organize them for the year 2013. According to what Díaz pointed out, the final idea of the changes is to standardize the procedures for institutional, undergraduate and postgraduate accreditations under the same criteria.

Among the new regulations that will come into effect next year are shortening the process timelines; expanding the evaluators to include foreign academics; and requiring postgraduate programs with current accreditation to request their incorporation into the accreditation process seven months in advance. This last regulation generated the most discussion among attendees, along with requests for greater flexibility during this transition period between the current regulations and the newly announced ones.

Student mobility and internationalization

During the meeting, a proposal was also made for a national mobility program for doctoral students from CRUCH universities, which would allow for internships among the 25 institutions. At this point, a request was made to extend the mobility program to master's students and not just doctoral students, especially for those CRUCH institutions that do not yet offer doctoral programs and would be excluded from this proposal.

For his part, the Director of Postgraduate Studies at the University of Chile, Daniel Wolff, presented an analysis of the recent results of the Conicyt Advanced Human Capital Competitions, where academics reflected on the overall situation of postgraduate studies in Chile.

Regarding the internationalization of postgraduate studies, the initiative of Mauricio Escudey, Vice-Rector of Research at USACH, was announced, to generate missions to promote postgraduate programs abroad by preparing information sheets for the different programs offered by the CRUCH universities.

Along the same lines, Teresa Marshall, executive director of CRUCH, presented the idea of creating a website with "postgraduate maps" to organize and increase the visibility of postgraduate programs offered by CRUCH institutions. The map would be a web showcase with two search options: one by area of knowledge and another by geographic location, leading to a more specific link with detailed program information. Due to the complexity and scope of the task, it was agreed to begin the cataloging process with doctoral programs only, leaving master's programs for later.

The meeting concluded by summarizing the priorities of the CRUCH Postgraduate Commission and expanding the composition of the management group, with the integration of Jani Brouwer from the Pontifical Catholic University; Juan Carlos Parra from the University of La Frontera and Manuel Roncagliolo from the University of Valparaíso.