Thanks to the initiative, those selected received financial support to develop their postgraduate theses during 2021 on topics related to Antarctic and sub-Antarctic science.
The initiative seeks to contribute to the training of advanced human resources and aims to financially support the preparation of works or theses of exceptional doctoral students.
Recently, four students from various doctoral programs in the country were beneficiaries of scholarships awarded by the IDEAL Center.
The initiative seeks to contribute to the training of advanced human resources and aims to financially support the preparation of works or theses of exceptional doctoral students taught by the Universidad de Concepción (UdeC), Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG) and Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh).
The scholarship consisted of an allocation of $650,000 gross Chilean pesos from March to December 2021, which is renewed annually for a maximum of four years, depending on academic performance. The selection of students was made by each doctoral program according to their academic background and financial support requirements.
“The training of human resources is of fundamental importance for us, where this new generation of researchers will be in charge of leading scientific research in the Antarctic and Subantarctic systems, in times of profound climatic, economic and social changes,” concluded the Dr. Humberto González, director of the FONDAP-IDEAL Center.
The selection of students was made by each doctoral program according to their academic background and financial support requirements.
“The opportunity to have this type of scholarship will allow more students to be interested in training and developing their research in this privileged area in the future. The Region of Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica has been concentrating the global attention of researchers due to its relevance as a key area for the study of climatic processes (ocean-atmosphere relationship) and their local, hemispheric and global effects,” assured Dr. Rodrigo Villa, director of the doctoral program in Antarctic and Subantarctic Sciences at UMAG.
“(This financial support) contributes to the generation of knowledge in an area of great relevance in the context of global change that we are experiencing, especially due to the lack of information that exists and the complex nature of the processes that occur there. It is also relevant because the students associated with the IDEAL Center are inserted in a team of researchers focused on generating knowledge that links these two major areas and from an integrative perspective,” said Sandra Marín, director of the doctoral program in Aquaculture Sciences at the UACh.
“Supporting the theses of doctoral students is very important, because they are the ones who, together with their tutors, do the work of developing research ideas, experimental designs and practical protocols, they are in the laboratories and the field, they analyze the data, and then they disseminate their results to both the specialized and general public,” said Dr. Nelson Valdivia, director of the PhD program in Marine Biology at UACh.