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July 21, 1997
By Terry Lightfoot
UC Office of the President
The University of California and Mexico's National Council on Science and Technology have entered into the most comprehensive research and education collaboration ever established between a U.S. university and Mexico.
Under the five-year agreement, UC, recognized as the premier public institution of higher education and research in the United States, and the council, Mexico's foremost agency for support of graduate education and research, will establish a partnership that will increase the formation of cross-border collaborations in graduate education, faculty and researcher exchanges, and joint research efforts. (The council in Spanish is called El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia and goes by the acronym CONACYT.)
"Within the last decade, partnerships and joint ventures between governments and industries have strengthened ties between California and Mexico. This cooperative agreement will accelerate academic interaction between the two countries, making scholarship and research an equally vital part of the binational relationship," said UC President Richard C. Atkinson.
Atkinson, UC faculty members, and members of the California Congressional delegation joined the council's director, Carlos Bazdresch Parada, Mexican researchers, and high-level government officials in a signing ceremony in Mexico City on July 25.
The pact will help both Mexico and California improve graduate education and advance the development of collaborative research for the benefit of scientific discovery and to address common issues, such as the environment, trade, and immigration.
The agreement guarantees that academic cooperation between UC and Mexico advances beyond the longstanding informal tradition of cross-border research projects based on teacher-student and collegial relationships between scientists.
"There is a rich and productive history of collaborative research between UC and Mexican scholars in the arts, humanities, and sciences," said Juan-Vicente Palerm, director of the UC Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS). "This agreement is not your usual confirmation of good intentions, but rather an effective instrument that will guarantee a binational infrastructure between institutions that will support and advance the work of some of the finest scholars in Mexico and the United States."
One of UC's many multicampus research units, UC MEXUS facilitates and supports interdisciplinary and international research related to Mexico, U.S.-Mexico relations, and a wide variety of scientific issues of importance to both countries. As director of UC MEXUS, Palerm will coordinate the program for the UC system.
Mexico has placed a high national priority on CONACYT's support of scientific development. The council funds research, technological development, and creation of infrastructures. It sponsors more than 3,000 fellowships for Mexican graduate students abroad each year from an annual fund of more than $300 million.
Nearly 1,000 Mexican graduate students participate in fellowships in the U.S. annually. Only 89 are undertaken at UC campuses. Within five years, the university and the council want to double that number, according to Jaime Martuscelli, CONACYT's deputy director for science, who will coordinate the program for the council.
"One of CONACYT's primary objectives is to increase Mexico's highly trained human resources, both in number and quality," said council director Bazdresch Parada. "Thus it is important to place Mexican students in the University of California, an excellent institution with graduate programs considered to be among the best in the world. We have great expectations of this agreement in both the medium and long term, not only in the area of graduate education, but also in the development of collaborative research projects and faculty and postdoctoral exchanges."