The Universidad de Concepción won eight of the 27 projects approved at the last Annual Competition on Research and Development Projects (R&D), Fondef, from CONICYT. This represents 30% of the national total, consolidating its leadership in research and development issues, turning into the institution with more projects approved.
Within this achievement, the participation of the Technological Development Unit (UDT) of UdeC can be noted, which is a research center involved in four of the eight UdeC projects.
Dr. Alex Berg, executive director of UDT, explains “projects are of high technological interest, with the participation of major national companies and refer to relevant production issues, so we are confident that they will strengthen the competitiveness of the industrial sectors involved”.
Fondef projects are intended to encourage the creation, spreading and improvement of technologies, products and services in key areas of the national economy; considering a run time of three years and, in the case of UDT, representing a little more than 1 billion pesos for the four initiatives.
Projects awarded
Projects awarded to UDT, explains Dr. Berg “are focused on developing new products, highly innovative, which may be introduced to the market in the medium term, taking advantage of UDT experience in process scaling, availability of numerous pilot plants and the specialized technical and professional work”.
The four initiatives approved to UDT are:
- Obtaining of a lipid extract with appetite suppressant activity from introduced gymnosperm seeds.
- Organic acids and natural resins from lignocellulosic waste.
- Development of antimicrobial polymeric materials with core-shell type nanostructures (copper-silver) as active agent for the prevention of in-hospital infections.
- Deveoplment of active biodegradable packaging and their application in the field of foodpackaging for export products.
