The ALFA PUENTES project

Representatives of 17 Latin American and six European countries, including university associations and regional and national quality assurance agencies, contributed to the first Regional Integration Seminar of the ALFA PUENTES project in Lima, Peru, from 7 to 8 November, 2011.
Hosted by the Peruvian Rectors' Conference (ANR) and the Andean Community (CAN), this event examined regional level quality assurance and accreditation mechanisms both in Latin America and Europe, allowing university associations of the Andean Community to develop a more refined plan for sub-regional accreditation across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela. Experiences were also shared on the European challenges and successes in developing a regional qualifications framework, a project now adopted by Central American universities, represented by the CSUCA, in the context of ALFA PUENTES.
The next Regional Integration Seminar will be held in Chile in March 2011 and will address mobility and recognition, the other topics of focus in the project’s sub-regional initaitives. In preparation for this event, back-to-back meetings were held in Buenos Aires and Montevideo (9-10 November 2011), focusing on universities in the Mercosur region and their particular role in this pan-regional project. Opened by the Secretary for University Politics in Argentina, and facilitated by the Grupo Montevideo of Universities (AUGM) and the Argentinean Rector’s Conference (CIN), these meetings tackled current initiatives to stimulate mobility in the region, including a programme called MARCO, which provides scholarships to students in Mercosur, as well as the results of a survey of universities of the four Mercosur countries on mobility trends and statistics in the region.
ALFA PUENTES is a three-year EU-supported project that is driven by EUA, OBREAL and more than 20 partners in Latin America and Europe (including some EUA collective members), all of which are national and regional university associations.