The University Alliance Metropolis Ruhr (UAMR) – Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Technische Universität Dortmund and Universität Duisburg-Essen - now shows its colors in Latin America. Following New York and Moscow it opened a joint lobbying office in Rio de Janeiro together with numerous well-known guests on Monday, May 9th. In September the relations between UAMR and South America are to be expanded with another office in the German Center for Science and Innovation (DIWH -Deutsches Wissenschafts- und Innovationshaus) in Sao Paulo. The topping out ceremony for this center already took place in the presence of the Federal President Christian Wulf and a delegation of UAMR on May 6th.
Christian Müller, DAAD, (left) and Prof. Christoph de Oliveira Käppler in the new ConRuhr-office.
The UAMR office “ConRuhr Latin America” is accommodated at the German Consulate General in the office of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD - Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst). It is headed by Prof. Dr. Christoph de Oliveira Käppler from TU Dortmund. “We start our external representation in South America at the right time. As the Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff just announced that 10 % of the new 100.000 scholarships for stays abroad of Brazilian students go to Germany”, states de Oliveira Käppler who is very familiar with the Brazilian university system as he was, among others, guest professor at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte for several years. And with Dr. Stephan Hollenstein UAMR was able to get an experienced expert as permanent representative on site. He already worked at DAAD in Rio de Janeiro and has excellent contacts with Brazilian and other South American universities.
Central goal and task of the new coordination office is to position and promote the Ruhr area as an excellent place for research and study, and to activate and strengthen international university cooperations. As a drop-in center on site the office is also supposed to intensify and pool UAMR activities, so that new networks can be built and be expanded. For that purpose mutual research visits of scientists are to be promoted, student exchange in both directions to be intensified, excellent graduate students to be won, joint study programs to be initiated and new offers for further education to be developed.