Waterloo International and the Water Institute were delighted this week to participate in the Chile 2021 Conference of the Americas on International Education (CAEI), which took place from October 19 - 22.
Held virtually by this year’s host country Chile with the theme “Charting the Future: Strengthening the Global Knowledge Community,” this major conference is held every two years.
The CAEI conference brings together higher education professionals and decision-makers involved in the internationalization of higher education in the Americas to discuss shared challenges, new paradigms, new strategies, best practices, and trends in international education.
Ian Rowlands, associate vice-president, International at the University of Waterloo moderated an interactive discussion on “Advancing water security through innovative, international, interdisciplinary experiential learning: A Brazil-Canada case-study” that included Roy Brouwer, Executive Director of the Water Institute and Professor in the Department of Economics.
The session in progress “Advancing water security through innovative, international, interdisciplinary experiential learning: A Brazil-Canada case-study.”
Joined by panelists Professor Ricardo Hirata, University of São Paulo, and Luciana Martin Rodrigues Ferreira, former Director of the Institute of Geology, and head of the Geosciences Division in the Environmental Research Institute of the São Paulo State Government, the panel discussed their experiences with long-term institutional capacity building between scholars, practitioners and students that apply inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to water security issues in the state of São Paulo and in Canada. The session reflected on lessons learned at both inter-institutional and individual scholar levels and identified how to advance knowledge mobilization globally and in the water domain specifically.
“The University of Waterloo – University of São Paulo - State of São Paulo partnership is a perfect example of how the internationalization of research and education can be a core mechanism to effectively pool and share knowledge and skills across borders in advancing progress against the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.” Ian Rowlands, Associate Vice-president, Waterloo International.
“Future water managers need to be able to navigate the complexity of water challenges by having appropriate interdisciplinary backgrounds. The longstanding Water Institute-USP collaboration focused on water security gives this new generation of learners access to a highly diverse and rich knowledge network of experts that span the Americas and beyond.” Roy Brouwer, Executive Director, the Water Institute.
Read more about the Conference of the Americas on International Education on the conference website.