Multilateral Cooperation

Cooperation between the Rectors’ Conferences of Europe and Latin America
 
The German Rectors' Conference (HRK) participates the ALFA Puentes project, which is intended to intensify dialogue and cooperation between the university conferences of Europe and Latin America, in particular developing cooperation in reform processes in higher education. The project focuses on quality assurance, recognition and mobility, i.e. those areas that are also of particular importance in harmonising the European Higher Education Area. The European role in this is to support the convergence processes in the Latin American Higher Education Area to ensure the greatest possible compatibility with the European Higher Education Area in the long term.


ALFA Puentes Events

One of the next major project events will be the Conference "Innovative Strategies for Higher Education in Latin America and Europe: International Collaboration and Regional Development", which will take place on 12-14 November 2012 in São Paulo, Brazil. The event will provide leaders in higher education from Europe and Latin America with a forum for discussing the changing roles and tasks of the higher education institutions (HEIs) in terms of growth, development and a changing society, and to decide how these will determine the strategies and priorities that need to be established for cooperation between the HEIs in both regions.

At a regional seminar, which took place in March 2012 in Chile as part of the ALFA-Puentes Project, both European and Latin American experts discussed the situation and perspectives of academic mobility and recognition. Progress reports on international study programmes in Germany were received with great interest by the participants.

The Kick-off Meeting for the European-Latin American project "Alfa Puentes: Building Capacity of University Associations in fostering Latin-American regional integration" took place from 15 – 17 May 2011 in Bogota, Columbia. The project is being led by a consortium of 23 national and international university associations from Europe and Latin America, with support from the European Commission. Its objectives are to promote the modernisation, reform and harmonisation of the Latin American Higher Education Area and to intensify cooperation between European and Latin American HEIs.