From 11 to 15 February 2019, the Catholic University of Colombia became the host for the official presentation of IMPALA, Strengthening IMPACT of Latin American universities, Erasmus + project, and which seeks to strengthen capacities in impact and quality in extension of Latin American universities with new methodologies developed by the European partner universities of the project.
During the first 2 days, the project leaders presented to the representatives of 19 European and foreign universities, the objectives and the work schedule that they will develop during 3 years, period of the IMPALA project. This is confirmed by Christophe TERRASSE, director of the international projects of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) “This international cooperation project is financed by the European Union. Its objective is to exchange information and experience between European universities and Latin American universities … Its main role is the creation of a measurement system to assess the impact of Universities and their connection with their local, regional and national environment “.
In the following 3 days the workshop entitled: Understanding impact QA for HEIs, (Understanding the impact of quality assurance of higher education institutions), was developed by Christophe Terrasse, Director, International projects EFMD; Patricio Montesinos, Director of the Unit of the University of Valencia; Rafael Monterde, full professor, Department of project management of the same educational institution and Henrique Marques Ribeiro, in charge of Planning and administrative support of the University of Porto.
Dr. Marcela del Campo, director of Extension and coordinator of the IMPALA project of the Catholic University of Colombia, highlights the importance of this project for Latin American universities “It is a project whose objective is that the 11 Latin American universities are strengthened in relation to the creation of a quality framework to measure the impact of the Extension.
Other Erasmus projects have been carried out on strengthening teaching and research, but now it is proposed to work in the area of extension or third mission as it is known in Europe, and in the developments that are related to impact measurement; The aforementioned agrees with the work currently done in the National Extension Network of Colombia “.
It should be noted that the Office of International and Interinstitutional Relations managed the participation of the Catholic University of Colombia in the IMPALA project and the Extension Directorate is in charge of coordinating it. Also participating are delegates from the Planning Department of the University and the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences.
