UDP Internacional

7 November 2022

The École Spéciale des Travaux Publics, founded in 1891 in France, is an engineering school specializing in construction and has a six-hectare open campus on the outskirts of Paris. Due to the fact that its students must spend a semester abroad, the campus recently promoted a program of agreements with universities in other countries where Chile and the Diego Portales University appear as strategic links to work with.

It is in this context that the professor and director of the School of Civil Engineering, Hernán Alcayaga, visited the French University. In the place he found a school equivalent to the UDP in Civil Engineering, a private university accredited by the French State that seeks to promote the internationalization of its students, who can spend a semester outside of France or do their graduation project at a foreign institution.

Professor Hernán Alcayaga was optimistic after the meeting with the École Spéciale des Travaux Publics (ESTP) and mentioned that the possibility of students coming to the University and carrying out an internship in French companies that maintain ties with the PDU. However, this link will continue to strengthen when the French school visits the UDP between November 22 and 25.

Regarding this agreement, Carlos Vega, a member of the ESTP internationalization team, pointed out: “They do not have any partner in Chile, so they are seeking to generate ties and bridges, given that their students have to spend a semester abroad. . Also, it would be ideal to send a teacher to do a course there or vice versa. Those are the exploration guides for future cooperation.”

This connection will allow the UDP to delve into a fundamental aspect, such as the degree specialties in the area, where the École has a network of nearly 130 research professors and 10 research laboratories. Likewise, the ESTP has 14 specialty options in its degree, in which Smart City, Construction 4.0, Building Information Modeling, Construction and Sustainable Cities stand out.

In that area, Alcayaga pointed out: “They offer some new and interesting specialties and we are considering to look for a joint agreement. We have a project, which is promoted by the Dean to generate some new specializations in our School. We are precisely aiming at very innovative things like these that they have at the École”, commented the teacher.

This and other agreements are part of the work of the General Directorate of International Relations, which already counts more than 100 student cooperation and mobility agreements, being visited by more than 300 international academics and making the UDP find itself inserted in university networks of quality through a series of instances and agreements, the most relevant being the double degree agreements at doctoral level and cooperation and research agreements.