In the context of the opening ceremony of the Postgraduate academic year of the University of Santiago de Chile, the Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, Dr. Aisén Etcheverry Escudero, was the main speaker and there stated that “the Government has “a commitment to science and technology, because they are the path to development.”
Fully agreeing with the concept expressed by the minister –and in that same context–, it is undeniable that postgraduate programs are a concrete contribution to the advanced training of professionals in Chile, in science, technology and in all areas of knowledge, so that Our country can count on specialists who contribute to concrete solutions to the multiple challenges of the 21st century, among them, economic growth, the exploitation of lithium, the consequences of climate change, and the scope of artificial intelligence.
Likewise, the postgraduate programs that make up the academic offering of the country’s state universities have added value, which is what has been called “natural laboratories.” This refers to the possibility of arriving at answers to problems of high technical complexity without the need to study similar problems in other places in the world, given our geography, variety of climates, territorial diversity and other characteristics of the current environment and context. This fact transforms the possibility of pursuing a postgraduate degree in Chile into a very attractive factor for students from the Southern Cone of America, given that we share language, cultural proximity, geographical similarities, and common challenges.
Notwithstanding the above, as a country we also face important challenges related to the advanced training of professionals. For example, with 20 million inhabitants, Chile is one of the OECD countries with the lowest number of female researchers, reaching more than one per thousand inhabitants, while the average for the organization is 9. For Finland, with a population of 5.5 million, the figure is 16.
Another challenge we face is the low level of job placement of researchers beyond academia. According to figures from the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, only 7% of Chilean Doctors work in the industry. Therefore, it is necessary that, as complete and complex universities, policies and strategies be designed jointly between universities, the State and the private sector, with the aim of promoting structural changes that encourage greater financing for research, development and innovation ( R&D&i) and towards models that enhance investment in research by the productive sector.
In a field directly related to promoting postgraduate degrees in Chile, various actions are being developed to have greater internationalization of these programs and thus be able to contribute to the formation of advanced human capital in the countries of the Southern Cone. Furthermore, these efforts contribute to consolidating the Chilean offer of Doctorates and Masters as a leader in Latin America, attracting regional talents, through robust postgraduate degrees, updated in their respective lines of research, and with economic incentives and benefits.
In this area, we must also move forward with political will in achieving international treaties focused on education. It is well known that education – and in particular Higher Education – is a powerful strategy that has a direct impact on the development of nations. Consequently, this level of education must be strongly promoted, with multilateral treaties and agreements, among other cooperation actions. Nowadays, since we do not have treaties in this area, it is very difficult to implement any program with universities from a neighboring country, a situation that is diametrically different from what happens if, for example, we want to establish an economic initiative, where everything The process is carried out quickly.
Postgraduate studies, approached as study programs focused on the advanced training of professionals, have a basic role in the culture and development of a country. The advancement of science, technology and specific areas of knowledge are key to achieving effective knowledge transfer between academia and industry. These are fundamental aspects that affect the progress of comprehensive development in Chile.
Quoting Minister Etcheverry again in the aforementioned university activity, “a country with more science and more technology is a country that can grow with equality and in democracy. It is a country that can move towards real sustainable development,” to which he added that, currently, this is a good time to pursue a postgraduate degree, because it incorporates us into a system of science, knowledge, technology and innovation “that does not “It lives in a vacuum, but is inserted in the design of public policies, in the decision-making process and in how new generations are prepared to give them a country where they can develop their future projects.”
