Rector of INTEC affirms "intimate" University-State-Company alliances will increase the country's competitiveness

SANTO DOMINGO. -The rector of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC), Julio Sanchez Marinez, stated that the establishment de "intimate" alliances between universities, STATUS and business sector is the formula for raise la country's competitiveness.

When dictating the conference "Higher education and Innovation: the academy as an ally of the company in a highly competitive context", during the event HUB Santo Domingo Chamber 2022, which organizes the Chamber of Commerce and Production of Santo Domingo, Sánchez Maríñez affirmed that if the scheme of the triple helix Academy - State and Business, the country will not have a quality higher education and companies will not have the trained human talent what do you require. 

 "By tightening triple helix alliances, universities will produce better, more rounded and more complete talent, who will enter the labor market with a shorter learning curve, oriented towards innovation, not only the reproduction of what already exists," he stressed. the rector of INTEC.

During the presentation held at a hotel in the capital, he pointed out that "the more competitive our talents become, the more attractive our country is," while noting that the Dominican Republic is the third country in Latin America with the worst evaluation of the workforce. properly educated.

At the meeting, Sánchez Maríñez announced that in order to improve the current scenario, INTEC, the Industry Association of the Dominican Republic (AIRD) and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Mipymes – (MICM), visited Penn State University, in the United States. States, to launch a project of “Learning Factory” in which students, at the time of completing their final degree project or thesis, will meet with companies and generate projects that respond to the needs of the national industry.

Sánchez Maríñez explained that Penn State University has been implementing the learning factory for more than 50 years and each company makes a contribution of approximately 3 dollars so that students acquire materials and other expenses necessary to develop the project.

“The important thing about the learning factory is the training that students acquire by putting their skills and talents at the service of companies, which offer orientation towards innovation and applied research inspired by use, so that competitive leaps are made, once the company integrates the result of that research into its operations. This is how you go from the ivory tower to competitive reality”, explained Sánchez Maríñez.

During the presentation, which was attended by Manuel Luna, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Santo Domingo and Antonio Ramos, vice president of that entity, said that, to contribute to the competitive positioning of the country, INTEC works hand in hand with the productive sectors to link training, creativity, research and innovation.​

He specified that, for its 2023-2027 institutional strategy, the university intends to carry out two-sided, academic and applied research, inspired by its practical use and imbue the curriculum with applied and industry-binding research, as well as to develop relevant projects and initiatives together with the productive sector and government.

To show the contributions of INTEC to competitiveness, the rector of INTEC highlighted that the university formalized an alliance to promote the orange economy together with Banco Popular Dominicano and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and MSMEs; inaugurated the Plastic Training and Research Center with the Dominican Association of the Plastic Industry and signed an agreement with the Association of Hotels and Tourism of the Dominican Republic (ASONAHORES), to seek a solution to the problem represented by the sargassum that reaches the coasts of the national territory.

He pointed out that together with the mining company Barrick, INTEC is working on the creation of industrial doctorates, in which a researcher is part of or is located within a company and develops his doctorate in the search for the solution to a specific problem of the organization, with the support of a company advisor and an academic advisor.

He also announced that the future actions of the university include the creation of a laboratory in experimental economics, in which analyzes of behavioral economics will be carried out and that it would be able to carry out applied studies in terms of economics and psychology of consumption, to analyze social phenomena and provide services to commercial sectors.