March 6, 2020, will be documented in the history of Colombia as the day the country registered its first case of COVID-19. As from that moment, the efficiency and reaction of private and public entities were put to the test to face this public health emergency—an emergency that had no precedent in the world, at least not in the past century. Among the first organizations to provide their knowledge and skills to the service of society was the Universidad del Rosario, which, thanks to its robust research ecosystem, could react effectively and collaboratively to develop projects that seek to save lives.
The strength in the research area that the university already had allowed it to react fast to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to be at the service of society and involved entities”, Stéphanie Lavaux states, vice-president and provost of the Universidad del Rosario until July 2020, and current professor of the School of International, Political, and Urban Studies of this institution.
For Lavaux, the maturity process achieved in the past two decades has managed to create a very diverse research agenda that allows teams to work deeply and extensively on a wide range of problems; these problems merge aspects of basic and applied science. This means a resolution of problems that affect and afflict society in all the major fields wherein the university is involved.
“That research strength has allowed us to diversify the portfolio of topics; strengthen research teams who already combine basic and applied science to react to the different situations in a structured manner; and work on the current problems of society both in the country and around the world. This was exactly what was reflected in the pandemic”, explains Political Scientist Lavaux.
Despite the fact that COVID-19 is a disease unknown to humanity, extensive research was conducted at Universidad del Rosario, which allowed rapid transition from theory to practice as was required by this crisis. Many are the examples experienced at the university, in all academic units, which show groups and researchers’ readiness, adaptation, and reactivity to contribute toward understanding and resolving problems related to the pandemic. One of those examples is shown in the project of mechanical ventilators for breathing support, a technological innovation based on research conducted at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences (Biomedical Engineering Program), which allowed the elaboration of a proposal and its submission to the National Government to develop a prototype with unique characteristics, only some weeks after the first case was detected.
“The fact that this ventilator was designed to work with solar panels shows the social sensitivity that the university imprints in its researchers. That combination of adapting theory to reality is extremely important in a country such as Colombia, where, especially in this case, the difficulties of electricity existing in some regions must be considered. It is about offering all our scientific capacity to those who need it the most,”, empathizes Lavaux.