Guilherme Ary Plonski is named to Costa Rican IAS's Academic Council
| Universidad de Costa Rica |
The president of the Universidad de Costa Rica (URC), Henning Jensen Pennington, has appointed IEA's board member Guilherme Ary Plonski to the Academic Council of the Espacio de Estudios Avanzados (UCREA). The institution is the first IAS created in Central America.
The UCREA was established in August 2014 after more than two years of study with the participation of Costa Rican and foreign researchers.
The second preparatory meeting for the creation of the UCREA was a workshop in February 2014, in which the features of the University of Bielefeld's ZiF were presented as a reference for the formulation of the Costa Rican institution's project.
At the workshop, in addition to the presentation of the ZiF's Executive Secretary, Britta Padberg, the IEA's director Martin Grossmann presented the Institutional Project 2012-2017. Representatives of other IASs of several countries have also attended.
José Gracia Bondía, an honorary professor at the UCR, was the one to invite Grossmann to the workshop at that time and also to present the invitation for Plonski to join the UCREA's Academic Council on a meeting at the University of Bielefeld.
| Guilherme Ary Plonski |
To think the not thought
According to the president of the UCR, the UCREA intends to be a multi and interdisciplinary, innovative and international space to streamline the organization and activities of the university to "think things that have not been previously thought."
The UCREA should be a critical awareness and enhancement tool for UCR to encourage creativity, and multi and interdisciplinary work. Another purpose is to build international networks of cooperation and learn from the successes and mistakes of similar institutions, making it a meeting place for academics from Costa Rica, Central America and the rest of the world.
The UCREA steering structure consists of an Academic Council, a Coordination and a Board. The Academic Council is in charge of setting the general direction of the institute, charging up the calls for research projects, workshops, and related activities and approval stages.
The Academic Council is composed of nine members: four representatives of the UCR areas (arts and letters, agri-food sciences, basic sciences and regional headquarters) and five members external to the UCR.
Photos (from the top): Universidad de Costa Rica; Leonor Calazans/IEA-USP