Center for Advanced Research in Education was launched

With the presence of the Minister of Education, Mónica Jimenez, last Wednesday, December 3, at the Headquarters of the University of Chile was inaugurated the Center for Advanced Research in Education, led by faculty and associate researcher of the Center Mathematical Modeling (CMM), Rafael Correa.

The new center is a joint initiative of the University of Chile, Universidad de Concepción and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and has the support of the Bicentennial Program on Science and Technology from CONICYT, after being selected in the First National Competition for the Creation of Center for Advanced Research in Education, conducted by this entity.

The essential mission of the Center is to help improve the educational opportunities of children and young people, creating knowledge to understand the conditions that foster learning and identify those that are holding them back, with particular emphasis on the challenges of improving the quality and equity of education.

The Center opens up a space for collaboration among scholars from different disciplinary perspectives and institutional affiliations, involved educators, sociologists, economists, engineers, doctors and psychologists of six faculties of the University of Chile, Universidad de Concepción and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, which joined academics from the Institute for Educational Development and Research at the University of Talca and the Center for the Study and Development in Psychosocial Stimulation. All of them carried out academic research in the areas of teaching and learning at school, teachers, neuroscience applied to education, educational technology, and educational policies. The Center also seeks to strengthen graduate programs related to education, joint working networks with national and foreign universities, and open spaces for dialogue and communication with the academic community and social actors.

After the opening ceremony, was performed an International Academic Seminar, with the participation of five foreign researchers who are part of the Academic Committee of the InternationalCenter. The objective of the activity was present about different fields of scientific research related to education, such as the development of the brain, neuroscience and learning, teaching, teachers and educational policies.

“Through the creation of this ResearchCenter, the main universities in the country forge an effective commitment to achieve quality education for all children and youth of our country. The belief that motivates us is that the field of education will greatly strengthened its practices if it has more and better scientific evidence, “says Alejandra Mizala, Academic Director of the Center.

The network The Center has cooperative ties with major centers of thought at the international level, as the universities of Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, Stanford University, Pennsylvania (USA), Stockholm (Sweden); UQAM Montreal (Canada), Haifa (Israel); Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Valencia (Spain) and the James S. McDonnell Foundation (USA), Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA, Italy), Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Germany); German Institute for International Pedagogical Research (Germany) and the Working Group of Teaching Program to Promote Reform Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (PREAL). We also advise the Center in its strategic guidelines an International Academic Council, composed of 9 prestigious academic worldwide known in their respective fields, and a Committee of relevant institutions in the field of education in the country, including the Academy of Sciences Chile, the Teachers College, the Chilean Association of Municipalities and the National Corporation for Private Schools.