Science Trust, Sacred Heart U join to develop ‘new generation of innovators’
The Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust and Sacred Heart University have entered into a collaborative agreement to develop projects innovative projects with impact in the areas of science, technology, communication and entrepreneurship.
This is the most comprehensive agreement that the Trust has made with a university, since it links different initiatives that affect all its nine programs.
“Puerto Rico needs to train new generations of innovators that contribute to the development of a vibrant and solid economy,” said Sacred Heart University President Gilberto J. Marxuach.
“This alliance with the Trust will allow us to focus our educational project in that direction with an exponential impact; especially by strengthening the area of Natural Sciences through research, scientific communication and education in natural sciences, technologies and systems,” he said.
As a first phase of the alliance, three critical areas will be emphasized upon — research, education and scientific communication — to promote projects of international scope. One of the needs identified by the Trust is the limited access to laboratories in Puerto Rico by researchers.
As a first step, Sacred Heart seven of its laboratories that are outfitted with specialized equipment to support biomedical and chemical-physical research, so that the group of researchers from the Trust’s Clean Water Project can analyze water samples, a process that began a few months ago.
“This agreement with Sacred Heart University allows us to use the excellent lab facilities the institution has in research and development initiatives, we can link researchers, contribute to computer science curriculums and be facilitators in scientific communication, among other efforts,” said Science Trust CEO Lucy Crespo.
“It is a multidisciplinary agreement that supports our mission to facilitate and develop capacities to continuously advance the economy. We’re very pleased with this achievement,” she said.
In the area of scientific communication, an alliance was established with the Ferré Rangel School of Communication with the purpose of educating future communicators in complex and sophisticated topics about science, technology, health and research.
One of the first initiatives in this direction is the Storytelling in Scientific Communication course that is being offered this academic semester. In addition, in March 2019 the first “Science Communication Forum” led by both institutions will be held.
The second phase of the partnership will focus on collaborations to strengthen education in technology, computational and analytical sciences, the promotion of entrepreneurship through emerging companies development programs, such as the Parallel 18 initiative, besides staff training for both entities.
With this collaboration, Sacred Heart and the Science Trust seek to promote the integration of diverse social groups and different generations in the execution of an educational project relevant to the current reality of Puerto Rico and the world, representatives from both entities said.
