Since 2012, the global ranking of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) has risen from 195 to 132 and is ranked as the top Latin American institution (QS Rankings). What are some of the key practices and initiatives implemented that have been instrumental in raising PUC through the global university rankings?
I believe there are several reasons why PUC has moved fast in the rankings. It may be difficult to speak about the whole university since we have 18 very different faculties with different cultures in each of them. However, my generalization will carry over to several of them.
The first condition I see is the quality of the students that select our university, which are usually in the top 2-3% of the country; in engineering, they are usually in the top 1-2%. We definitely work with the best academic students in the country.
Second, the quality of the faculty, and especially the new hires. Most of the 18 Faculties, engineering being one of them, have gone through a deep renovation process of their professors. For instance, in our case, we achieved a net growth of about 50% in the number of faculty in the past five to seven years. This is the result of an ambitious strategic planning process that has a strong alignment with the central administration of the university. This is not obvious in our case, since the deans are elected by the faculty and not appointed by anyone. The young members hired are simply superb, and I foresee a very promising future for them, as well as for our university. The research productivity and quality being produced is comparable to the best universities in the world. Of course, we are sometimes lagging behind in infrastructure, but in all disciplines that require primarily intellectual work and creativity, we are doing extremely well. PUC has several faculties that are in the world’s top 50 according to the QS ranking—law, design, agronomics and forestry, education, just to mention some―and this year, civil engineering was also ranked in the QS top 50.
A third reason that I believe is extremely important, is the culture of excellence that is present in our activities within the university―from the President’s office down to the deans and departments. A final comment is that some of us have picked certain battles carefully to focus and intensify our work, which has led to good results. One of them has been diversity. For instance, we implemented an ambitious plan for the inclusion of very talented economically disadvantaged students in the country, and have supported them with a free education throughout in a program called Talent and Inclusion that is now implemented across the university. Another success has been the presence of women as academics and within the student body, especially in STEM careers. The proportion of female students in engineering have grown 18% in 2010, to 35% in 2019, without any affirmative action process. We have also built very strong research-oriented international collaborations with universities, which have also produced very interesting results.
What sets PUC’s Faculty of Engineering apart from other institutions in Chile, Latin America and globally?
Most likely, care. It may sound strange, it is not research, teaching or knowledge transfer―it is the relations between our faculty, students, professionals, administrative people who have created a community that truly cares in both meanings of the word.
First, as individuals, we care about each other. Our goal is to make our students succeed as ethical people and professionals, nothing else. We are far still from an optimal condition, but we struggle every single day to build this community of care, be that in the classroom, in our interpersonal relations, with international visitors, with everyone that gets in contact with this community.
Second, we care about our country and try to help decision-makers anticipate unknown social concerns that we believe will be coming soon. We dedicate our time and efforts in academia to be honest people at the service of the country. Again, there is still much to do in this respect—there are so many egos, personal interests, and lack of common good—but there is strategic clarity. We owe this to our country, its people, especially to those who need us. There is still so much inequity in Chile, so many things that need to be corrected and improved, in which the role of engineering is huge.
Engineering is a discipline of care, and we want to make this statement a reality in our country. Many of these social concerns are not exclusive to Chile, and therefore our work and dedication to them may also be a contribution to other countries and societies. All the rest is secondary, good things will come out of a caring, solid and ethical community like the one we are trying to build.
How has the Faculty of Engineering transformed under your leadership? What are some key priorities as dean you would like to see achieved in the next five years?
We have been through a lot of transformations, and indeed, many times I have been pointed out by my colleagues as going too fast. But I did not lie to them when I was elected, I told them in 2010 that my heart was that of an entrepreneur that happens to be an academic—like a former student and good friend defined me recently. If they wanted to vote for me as a dean, they had the right to know that I was going to push the school with vigor. I have been elected three times in a row by the faculty, which is a big honor, and I owe them a lot for their continuous trust. But I also owe a lot to the incredible teams of directors and professionals that have worked with me over these years. This is my third and final period, and I still have three years to go and many ideas to keep improving the school.
In summary, in my previous years, I believe I was able to create what I call the enabling conditions for moving our school from good to great. We improved in essentially all possible indicators―we grew in inclusion and diversity, created and strengthened a true entrepreneurial ecosystem within the school, supported the creation of all interdisciplinary initiatives within the university, reformed the curriculum and changed the way of educating engineering students, increased research productivity and impact, led in knowledge transfer in the country, obtained larger research grants from the government and so forth. All, however, at the expense of a huge effort from faculty, professionals and students. Therefore, what I expect for the years to come is that all this effort has been done, not to chase the mirage of reputation, but to serve a purpose—a purpose that needs to be in close harmony with the most significant social concerns of our society and most needed people. Get the person in the center of our activities. The name could be climate change, poverty, water, earthquakes, productivity, clean energy, food, health, artificial intelligence, or whatever is still unknown to us. I hope to achieve this change of culture within our school, the culture of care.
How would you characterize the Faculty of Engineering’s relationship with industry? How are you incorporating the skills students will need to succeed in industry (i.e. soft skills) into your curriculum?
There is a long history of liaisons between UC Engineering and industry. Indeed, in 1938 we created a vehicle called DICTUC within the engineering school to transfer knowledge and serve also as a trustee of the public faith required in certified laboratories, or any private or public litigations involving engineering knowledge and expertise. Despite its success, 80 years later I can say that we are still learning how to do this in an effective manner. Because of this, we recently created within the school of engineering an Industry Liaison Office (ILO), thinking that we needed a more prospective capacity to match the diverse competencies available within the school with the vast needs of industry and government. This re-foundational spirit has led us to some very interesting activities with public entities and industry, but as I said, we learn on a day-to-day basis how to cast properly some ideas to bring industry closer and closer to UC Engineering.
Our more than 15,000 alumni, are a space of incredible wealth that we need to approach more and better. Though they have been very supportive, the retribution culture is not still present in Chile as it is in the USA. This has to change, but for that it is indispensable that we have a clear value proposal to them.
We have also incorporated in the curriculum the interaction of our students with industry in several different ways, through formal curricular activities such as the two, two-month mandatory internships and one final four-month graduation activity in industry/government, whose objective is to validate student competencies according to ABET criteria. In addition to this, we also have two mandatory design courses (year one and three) in which students need to work with industry, NGO’s or government on a global topic defined every semester.
As host of GEDC 2019 Santiago, what are some outcomes from the annual conference that you hope to achieve?
First, that different deans in the world know better our country and region, as well as its engineering institutions. I hope this event serves to consolidate more and more this incredible initiative that is the GEDC, as a safe space to hold relevant discussions of the future of engineering in our countries and regions. Second, that the event be very dynamic, active, participative, and why not, controversial in the sense of ideas, since we have an enormous responsibility back in our countries and societies to help them in ways that are probably not defined yet. We must be innovative leaders, and cannot be simply passive observers of our societal concerns. We are all together in this, and the GEDC must be this space of encounter where different ideas are discussed openly, frankly and also questioned with the only hope of helping all of us. Third, the motto of “Minds, hearts, and hands: impact with a purpose” well reflects what we expect—a new encounter of engineering with its roots as a discipline of care.
GEDC 2019 Santiago’s theme is “Engineering minds, hearts and hands: Impact with a purpose”. Could you share with us what was the inspiration for this theme?
I provided already some clues, but let me rephrase it somehow. Engineering has always been a discipline of care. In my view, engineers need to very soon establish a completely different conversation with society, which cannot be led only by our deductive thinking components and rationale coming from our left brain. Such conversations come also from our right brain, from connecting our ideas and capacities with the emotions of people, their feelings, with creativity, with divergent thinking processes, with leadership.
Why is it that engineers do not participate in many of the most crucial decisions currently in governments, or even politics? Engineers tend to be the ones consulted for technical opinions of big problems, but many times do not get involved in the most relevant decisions and consequences of such decisions. It is technology that will play an exponentially increasing role in our lives as citizens, and we as engineers will need to get into those conversations soon. Who do you think is going to deal in the near future with the regulatory aspects of artificial intelligence? Or the breakthroughs in synthetic biology? Or the new forms of government? Transparency of data? Or the sustainability of our planet? We need engineers fully engaged in our societal concerns with their minds and hands as they have always done it incredibly well, but today, we also need their hearts to establish this new dialogue with people.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our global engineering community?
We are incredibly excited with the conference coming in October, so please feel free to contact us for any questions, ideas, and suggestions to improve. We will put all of our effort in making this a great conference for everyone and hopefully make this trip to the very south of the world, one that was really worth it. We welcome you all in Santiago next October, it is a beautiful month, spring time, great temperatures, great food, better wine and a lot to do in the city and surroundings.