1st Latin American Energy Congress

A Latin American view with global impact

Abstract

The 1st Latin American Energy Congress: “A Latin American view with global impact” was held during an intense day on May 17, 2023 at the headquarters of the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, Facultad Regional Córdoba. This event was held within the framework of the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN), which has its institutional origin in the Universidad Obrera Nacional, created by means of Law Nº 13.229, sanctioned on August 19, 1948, promulgated on August 26 and published in the Official Gazette on August 31 of the same year.

In the last three decades, the relevance of issues related to sustainable development and territorial development became evident to the Peoples. In this sense, with the passage of time, our University maintained many of its founding purposes and, in particular, committed itself to the role of the State to guarantee rights and produce knowledge. In light of these commitments to the wellbeing of our countries and their communities, we defined goals that cannot be postponed for our institution: to promote the transition to sustainable development; to promote and consolidate a path for energy transition and the incorporation of the gender perspective.

The 1st Latin American Energy Congress yielded several conclusions, of which the most relevant are:

• The essential link between the scientific knowledge and skills existing in the scientific-technological system and the capacity to generate an impact on the productive, economic and social fabric of our country through the intensive use of research, development and innovation (R&D&I) processes.

• The high quality of our human resources training encourages us to promote multi-stakeholder articulations, federalization and internationalization of actions.

• The challenges presented by the objectives of regional integration in accordance with national action plans, where public-private partnerships and Science, Technology and Research activities must play a predominant role. Given that sustainable development and the change of the productive matrix cannot be achieved without the contribution of scientific and technological knowledge.

• The observation that with the accumulation of knowledge and technological scaling around energies, jobs of increasing quality are created. These processes warn us that we must promote public policies based on the intensive use of knowledge that allow us to develop with economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The 1st Latin American Energy Congress was one of the initiatives that this University proposes as interactions between the scientific-technological, business, industrial community and the whole society in everything related to Energy, in order to contribute from the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional to the industrial and technical development, allowing the economic diversification of the country. As a mark of the commitment of our University with the implications associated with the transfer of knowledge to the productive sector, we must highlight that in April 2023 the Rector of the UTN, Engineer Rubén Soro, his Cabinet of Secretaries, together with the Deans from all over the country visited Loma Campana in Vaca Muerta together with authorities from the YPF Foundation and Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales.

Thus, the University participated in a series of conferences on the industry, technological advances and the future of Vaca Muerta, at the company's headquarters located in Neuquén. During the development of the academic day, the federal criterion that characterizes the structure of our University and therefore the growth of the last decades in the research area became evident. In particular, in a topic such as energy, where it is urgent to respond to the needs throughout the country in relation to the energy transition.

The invitation to speakers of great prestige in the field was aimed at thinking strategically about energy sovereignty at the national and regional level. For this reason, the Congress had speakers from eight Latin American countries and some special participations from other regions such as Germany, USA and Canada.

All the presentations enriched the experiences on the reconfiguration of the energy matrix and sustainable development. The promotion of dialogue with these specialists and our researchers from all the Facultades Regionales broadened the horizon for the research group, almost eighty work teams, which have been developing energy research projects with funding from our University for some time now.

This publication is an essential complement to what happened in the 1st Latin American Congress on Energy, where researchers and potential recipients of technology transfers will be able to identify the capabilities of our University in the field of energy and position itself as a national reference in the subject. Finally, it is an institutional milestone to be highlighted that the organization of this Congress was the coordinated result of four Secretariats of the Rectorate: Secretariat of University Coordination; Secretariat of Science and Technology; Secretariat of Culture and University Extension and Secretariat of International Relations and Technological Liaison.

Organizing Committee

Secretariat of University Coordination - Rectorate
Sr. Juan Carlos Agüero

Secretariat of Science and Technology - Rectorate
Ing. Omar Del Gener
Mg. Ing. Lucas Gabriel Giménez

Secretariat of Culture and University Extension - Rectorate
Ing. Federico Olivo Aneiros

Secretariat of International Relations and Technological Liaison - Rectorate
Ing. Daniel Altina