UCSD Initiates Business Partnership with Mexico
01/12/2006
Adriane Tillman,
La Jolla Village News
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is reaching out to partner with its closing neighbor: Mexico. Under Chancellor Marye Anne Fox’s leadership, UCSD has launched four initiatives to improve cross-border air quality, open biotechnology factories in Baja, improve Mexico’s economy and increase UCSD’s presence in Mexico.
The initiatives are more conceptual than dollar-driven and after fund-raising last fall, the university has $700,000 to begin its border partnership.
“The university has had some projects in Mexico and along the border, but certainly nothing of such binational magnitude,” said Barry Jagoda, UCSD spokesman.
The first point of partnership will bring scholars and researchers from both countries to characterize and initiate dialogue on the air quality issues of the Mexicali-Imperial Valley region. UCSD professor Mario Molina, a Nobel Prize-winner in chemistry, will lead the program.
In an effort to capitalize on La Jolla’s biotech industries, the second initiative aims to establish production facilities in Baja California to manufacture the innovations coming out of San Diego’s laboratories. UCSD extension is applying for a $20 million grant from the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington for the project.
“It’s along the lines of a maquilador, where lower-paid Mexican workers assemble products and ship them around the world,” Jagoda said. “They will earn much higher wages than the workers get now.”
A “maquiladora” is a production facility that can be entirely owned by a foreign investor without special authorization. Duty-free importation of machinery and materials to the facility is permitted, and usually all of the maquiladora’s goods are exported.
The “Economic Strategies” project, the third initiative, aims to bring together top political leaders from across Mexico to discuss how to restructure the economy to increase its global competitiveness. Professors and researchers within UCSD’s Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, the department of Economics and the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies will contribute their knowledge about the effects of U.S. and Asian policies on Mexico. UCSD researchers will facilitate the 2006 conference between the Mexican leaders.
“There’s a pretty general consensus on what has to be done in Mexico,” Jagoda said. “The problem is the political will.”
Finally, as part of the last initiative, UCSD has assigned a full-time staff member to the newly established University of California headquarters in Mexico City, a Casa de California.
The four-point campaign is only the beginning of UCSD’s partnership with Mexico. Initiatives may also follow in medicine and health.
“There’s no rigid design here – some things might not work out,” Jagoda said. “What’s lasting is the commitment to the partnership.”
The initiatives’ “founders,” those who have contributed financially to the project, include former UCSD Chancellor and UC President Richard Atkinson, Aaron Feldman and John Moores.
For more information on how to get involved contact Judith Ecklund, (858)822-5161, or e-mail jecklund@ucsd.edu.
