Rector Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México visits Groningen

On 5 April 2023, President Jouke de Vries welcomed his counterpart Rector Enrique Graue Wiechers of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) to the University of Groningen. UNAM is one of Groningen’s key global Partners, and home to UG’s first Representative Office abroad.

The visit marked a celebration of a decade of friendship, a period that largely coincides with Dr. Graue’s term as UNAM Rector. UNAM and UG have developed a truly comprehensive and sustainable internationalization strategy.

Collaboration started off small at the institutions’ medical faculties already in 2009. In 2023, the partnership proudly counts with more than thirty co-supervised PhD trajectories across a wide variety of academic fields.

The UNAM-UG cooperation is exemplary for what UG considers to be at the heart of its Strategic Partnership Framework (SPF): the idea that internationalization can only be considered strategic if it acknowledges and promotes the interconnectedness of different collaborative activities.

The visit kicked off with a meeting between authorities and the signing of a Strategic Collaboration Agenda. In addition to Dr. Graue, UG welcomed vice-Rector Patricia Dávila, vice-provosts Francisco Trigo for International Affairs and Manuel Torres for Graduate Studies, and the directors of UNAM’s Berlin Office, Alejandro Velázquez and Andrea Guillén.

The delegation subsequently visited the University Medical Center Groningen, birthplace of the UNAM-UG strategic connection, for a meeting with Dean Wiro Niessen and vice-dean for research Erik Boddeke. This was followed by a meeting with nearly twenty UNAM students currently in Groningen.

UG is extremely proud that UNAM, home to more than 300 thousand students and a key regional stakeholder in education, research & public policy-making, has selected Groningen as one of its main European Partners.

UG’s SPF Academic Ambassadors for Latin America may provide further valuable insights into opportunities for collaboration. Contact the Ambassadors or the Department for International Strategy & Relations for more information.