The University of British Columbia today hosted the first meeting of a bilateral forum on growing educational and research collaboration between Canada and Mexico. The forum brings together government, the higher education community, the private sector, and civil society to promote student, scholar, and teacher exchanges, increase joint research in areas of mutual interest, and share best practices in higher education and innovation.
The first meeting was attended by a number of Mexican and Canadian government officials; private sector representatives; American Consul General Ms. Lynne Platt; CEO of Mitacs, Prof. Alejandro Adem; and UBC’s President and Vice-Chancellor, Arvind Gupta.
“I’m proud that UBC is partnering on this initiative and we are committed to acting as a catalyst for spurring greater Canada-Mexico engagement,” said Gupta. “We look forward to deeper collaboration and student movement between our university and our Mexican partners.”
The bilateral forum complements a Mexican government initiative to send 10,000 Mexican students to Canada starting in the summer of 2015 called “Project 10,000”. UBC is an approved institution for students participating in Project 10,000. In addition, UBC will host 13 students from Mexico this summer as part of the Mitacs Globalink internship program. At the first meeting of the forum, Mitacs announced a scholarship, sponsored by the Mexican Government, to support 100 Mexican students coming to Canada through the Globalink program.
Quick facts:
- UBC is one of North America’s most internationally-engaged universities. UBC has nearly 12,000 international students from 139 countries
- In 2014-15, there were 213 Mexican students enrolled at UBC
- UBC has active student mobility agreements with Mexican institutions, including: UNAM, Tec de Monterrey, Universidad de las Americas Puebla
- In 2014-15, there were 42 UBC students studying in Mexico