Representatives from UC MEXUS visited UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco in January to offer funding opportunity workshops about the Institute's current programs and competitions. These workshops are held each year at one-third of the UC campuses as part of ongoing outreach activities to disseminate information to faculty, students and researchers seeking funding support.
UC MEXUS also offers regional workshops each year in Mexico. For the 2008 annual cycle of funding opportunities, a workshop was held in December at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) in Baja California that drew participants from the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC), Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE), Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), Universidad Pedagógica Nacional de Tijuana and Universidad del Estado de Sonora. The material from these presentations can be found at:
http://www.ucmexus.ucr.edu/resources/08_Bajataller.pdf
and
http://www.ucmexus.ucr.edu/resources/FinalStudentWorkshop_spanish.pdf.
In addition, the UC MEXUS director visited several institutions throughout Mexico.
The workshops at UC campuses and in Mexico are designed to increase the visibility of the Institute and the funding opportunities it provides for projects and academic development in all disciplines. Drs. Wendy DeBoer and Andrea Kaus, directors of the fellowships and grants programs, and International Academic Programs Coordinator Susana Garcia provided individualized information to each campus about the parameters of each competition, clarified misperceptions about UC MEXUS funding, and offered suggestions regarding proposal submission and writing. The workshops also included a lengthy period for questions and allowed additional time afterward to meet directly with potential applicants.
As part of the campus visits, UC MEXUS also met with academic administrators to discuss specific campus interests and other collaborative initiatives and programs.
Additional information on the workshops is available on the UC MEXUS website, www.ucmexus.ucr.edu, at http://www.ucmexus.ucr.edu/resources/08_workshops_nn.pdf.
In the latest effort to expand the outreach efforts of UC MEXUS-CONACYT programs in Mexico, Dr. Roberto Sanchez-Rodriguez, director of UC MEXUS, visited three Mexican States in January 2008. These visits are part of the ongoing efforts of UC MEXUS and CONACYT to bring the information about their collaborative programs directly to the faculty and students, particularly outside Mexico City. Dr. Sanchez-Rodriguez first visited Monterrey Nuevo Leon, where he was hosted by Dr. Luis Todd, coordinator of the State Program of Science and Technology in Nuevo Lean. During the meeting, Dr. Sanchez-Rodriguez presented important information regarding UC MEXUS-CONACYT fellowship and grant programs to representatives from the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Universidad Regiomontana, and Universidad de Monterrey, as well as a number of members of the press. In an effort to relate information directly to professors and researchers, Dr. Sanchez-Rodriguez also spoke to a group of faculty at the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon and later at the Tecnologico de Monterrey. He then traveled to Campeche, Campeche, where he made a similar presentation to faculty and students at the Universidad Autonoma de Campeche. During his trip, Dr. Sanchez-Rodriguez also visited the Centro de Investigaciones Cientificas de Yucatan (CICY), a CONACYT research center, and later during the day the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan, where he also presented information on UC MEXUS-CONACYT programs to professors and students of both institutions. He also met with the Secretary of Health of the State of Yucatan who is interested in creating a collaborative program between the Secretary of Health of Yucatan, the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan, and the University of California, in health sciences.
In addition to the director's efforts to bring information about collaborative opportunities available through the University of California to Mexican scholars, the program directors from the UC MEXUS fellowships and grants departments made a similar visit to Tijuana in early December of 2007 to present information to universities in Baja California (see 2008 Funding Opportunities Workshop).