Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh) - Valdivia, Chile

The Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh) is a distinguished Latin American academic institution with more than 60 years of experience educating professionals who are highly competitive at both the national and in­ter­na­tio­nal levels. UACh is among the top five universities nationwide and a pioneer in delivering knowledge and culture in harmony with the environment, drawing from the unique natural surroundings of the four cities of Chilean Patagonia where its campuses are located: Valdivia, Osorno, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique.

Graduate education underpins the strategic development of the Universidad Austral de Chile. With more than four decades of experience in this area, the uni­ver­si­ty has seen almost 3,000 students graduate with master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, and medical specialties. Currently, the uni­ver­si­ty offers 11 doctoral programs, 35 master’s programs, and 10 medical specialties, along with 3 subspecialties. A multidisciplinary academic body sustains this ensemble of programs with outstanding scientific productivity across a wide spectrum of re­search areas, as well as strong links of in­ter­na­tio­nal collaboration.

The Uni­ver­sity ties the graduate studies closely to the development of advanced re­search capabilities and the solution of complex real-world problems. This educational endeavour entails the training of highly skilled graduates who will participate fully in the social, cultural, and productive processes that define the work environments of the distinct areas of study offered. This process involves cross-disciplinary re­search in broad areas such as energy, the environment, and other disciplines that are strongly oriented toward the gen­era­tion of applied re­search contributing directly to public policy formation from local to in­ter­na­tio­nal levels. The work of the graduate students has materialized as timely contributions, for example, to projects focused on sustainability, education, health, and the recovery of ethnic communities and historical and cultural heritage. Additionally, many of the programmes foster a strong inter­dis­ci­plin­ary focus in order to critically formulate, re­search, and analyse policies, projects, and actions in distinct areas of local and regional development throughout Latin America, with a special emphasis on the sociocultural, economic, and environmental contexts of these initiatives.

The SPRING pro­gram in UACh is based in the Faculty of Economics and Management and is focused on regional development, strategies that combine development plan­ning theories with development economics, regional economy, spatial management, natural resources management, disaster risk management, plan­ning for resilience and social processes in vulnerable areas. In addition, the pro­gram offers the possibility to discover and understand Chile´s approach to decentralization and economic development, and to critically study and learn from past and ongoing social and economic processes in Latin America.