Preliminary Results of IMPALA were Presented at the EAIE

The annual EAIE conference (European Association for International Education) took place in Helsinki, Finland from the 24th to the 27th of September, 2019, gathering more than 6000 professionals from 95 countries around the world. The conference was the stage for sharing the strategic points of IMPALA (Strengthening Impact for Latin American Universities) in a presentation titled “Getting inspiration from South-South cooperation to reshape education partnerships.” This inspiring project encourages developmental cooperation for three reasons: first, it focuses on the third mission statement, a priority for Latin American countries; second, the structure of the project is very clear; and third, its methodology is based on the experiential application of the steps proposed in the structure and evaluation of the results.

Dr. Marcela Del Campo from the Universidad Católica of Colombia, Colombia

The aforementioned session was led by Christophe Terrasse and Jean-Baptise Maillard from the EFMD, Mabelin Armenteros Amaya from the Universidad Agraria of The Habana, Cuba, and Marcela Del Campo from the Universidad Católica of Colombia, Colombia. Through the Erasmus + IMPALA project, the panelists illustrated best practices for cooperation among the three Latin American countries and their institutions, as well as the advantages of a North-South-South cooperation to develop and implement a logical framework for assessing the impact of the third mission of the university.

Taking part in the EAIE conference enabled the panelists to present the results of this project in an international event for the first time, increasing awareness for European academic promoters and specialists concerning the issues their peers in Latin America are addressing.

The IMPALA project will continue to develop in the working sessions that will take place in November in Holguín, Cuba, where the project team will conduct the workshop “How to apply the impact assessment system at a national/institutional level?” (for professors), and in March 2020 in Lisbon, Portugal, the team will develop the workshop “Training regulatory organisms and senior management of Higher Education Institutions for implementing the impact assessment framework.”

Additionally, Christophe Terrasse will participate in the EFMD Global Network Americas Annual conference in November 2019 to discuss the impact assessment of the third mission.