Institutional News
Together with the Argentine president, the CONICET signed the agreement to create the Santa Cruz Research and Transference Centre
During the inauguration of the building work to extend the UTN-Regional Santa Cruz, the triple dependency Centre was created.
In the city of Río Gallegos, the president of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Dr. Salvarezza; the vicechancellor of the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral (UNPA), Ades Eugenia Márquez and the dean of the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional Regional Santa Cruz (UTN- FRSC), Eng. Martín Goicoechea, signed the agreement to create the Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia (CIT) Santa Cruz [Santa Cruz Research and Transference Centre].
The main objective of the Santa Cruz CIT is the development of a settlement programme for researchers, fellows, technicians, equipment and infrastructure. With the creation of this Centre, there will be nine in all the country. They are all located in those places where there are not CONICET institutions available. The CITs deal with problems that come from subjects developed by people from the place (universities, the provincial and municipal government, etc.).
In the last years, the Council has focused on two objectives: knowledge transference and decentralization of science. As part of these aims, the CONICET and different national universities have promoted a programme for the creation of Research and Transference Centres in all the country. The idea is to strengthen regional developments and promote a more equitable distribution of human resources and research capacities at a national level.
In Santa Cruz, the activity and settlement programme will be focused on Energy; Food; Gas and Oil; Environment and Mining Industry; Embedded Systems and Tourism; and the production of cultural goods. Furthermore, the CIT is going to have a scanning electron microscope as well as equipment funded by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation.
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said: “We have signed and agreement between the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral and the CONICET in order to create the first scientific technology transference centre in Santa Cruz. We have already inaugurated several of them, and this means decentralizing the CONICET and having a Council not only located in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe or in Córdoba so as to train CONICET scientists from all parts of the country, from La Quiaca to Tierra del Fuego.”
Likewise, the present authorities signed an addendum which was part of the 2014 agreement between the CONICET and Y-TEC, represented by its General Manager Santiago Sacerdote. Through the addendum, the “Study of the marine energy resources of southern Patagonia” is going to have Santa Cruz CIT as an implementation unit. This project lays the groundwork to establish a joint laboratory that will strengthen the capacities of the region to make good use of renewable sources, thus developing specifically research and providing services in the field of materials and marine corrosion. This laboratory is a definite sign of decentralization of scientific capacities. It will promote the development of research natural resources of the place and the potential to produce technology in strategic areas for the national development.