
An institutional mission to Mexico by the University of Insubria ended at the end of May, with excellent results, with the aim of initiating new academic relations, signing collaboration and exchange agreements, attracting degree seekers to our degree courses, and meeting with our diplomatic representatives.
The mission was led by the Rector's Delegate for Internationalisation, Professor Giorgio Maria Zamperetti, accompanied by Adrian Renteria Diaz, a lecturer of Mexican nationality from the Department of Law Economics and Cultures, and by four students from different degree courses selected through a call for applications, Lorena, Marlene, Matilda and Naomi, all perfectly Spanish-speaking, who conveyed Insubria's values and excellence to the hundreds of Mexican students they met.
Mexico, with a surface area of 2 million square kilometres (six times the size of Italy) and 130 million inhabitants, is the fourteenth world power in terms of GDP volume; in particular, Mexico is a very young country, which does not know the problems of the demographic winter that afflict Europe, and which looks with interest at the possibilities of training abroad for its students.
The mission started from the Universidad Panamericana, which will reciprocate the visit to Insubria at the end of June, when a collaboration agreement will be signed in Como.
This was followed by a meeting with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the country's largest university with 260,000 students, and the Universidad Anáhuac, which has a state-of-the-art campus.
The delegation was then received with great cordiality by the Italian Ambassador to Mexico, Luigi de Chiara, who, with the experience gained almost at the end of his four-year mandate, offered many insights and further contacts worthy of interest. Particularly significant, also in the capital, was the visit to the Escuela Libre de Derecho, a university institution specialising in law that has traditionally trained the ruling classes of the Mexican nation for over a century. Finally, the delegation was invited to the Senate, where there was an interesting exchange of ideas on the role of Parliament in Mexico's consolidated democracy.
Leaving Mexico City, the delegation headed to the Puebla area where they were hosted by the Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, with whom an initial collaboration agreement was signed. A curiosity: the university runs Radio Universidad, FM 99.5, at whose microphones Insubria teachers and students spoke to promote mobility towards Italy.
On the last stop in the south of the country, the delegation was welcomed by the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, with which a second cooperation and exchange agreement was signed. On this occasion, an audience of more than 300 Mexican students listened to the varied mobility experiences of our students and asked numerous questions, testifying to their great curiosity about our university.
«The welcome offered to the Insubre delegation was always very warm, a sign of a strong interest in developing common projects. - remarked Professor Zamperetti, satisfied with the outcome of the mission -. Mexico is a 'new' cultural, economic and demographic frontier, suitable for developing scientific and educational collaborations and increasing the number of our international students. At the end of this arduous journey, we have brought home two collaboration agreements with leading local institutions, and two more will be signed shortly: we are quickly rising in the international rankings also thanks to the profound conviction that to stand still is to have lost in the competitive world of higher education and research».
(Picture: Professor Giorgio Maria Zamperetti at the Universidad Panamericana)