Ecuadorian and world universities have set as one of their strategic goals the internationalization of their activities, which means the establishment of global and inter-institutional relations for cooperation and mutual improvement in the areas of their competences, such as management, teaching, connecting with the community and research. In order to make this concrete, processes and activities have been defined that include the creation of working links with foreign institutions. In the case of Ecuador, the mobility of domestic students to study centers in other countries is one of the paths followed through agreements that allow the implementation of student exchange programs for certain periods.

Teachers and researchers are also protagonists of various forms of international mobility. In this experience of students, professors and scientists, it is necessary to include other officials who perform administrative tasks in higher education institutions. In this way, university communities establish a relationship and interaction with their colleagues from abroad, aware of the great benefits of living and understanding other ways of being and acting.

One of the current modalities and one with the greatest influence in the process of internationalization of Ecuadorian universities is the completion of postgraduate studies by their teachers who permanently perform master’s degrees, doctorates and postdoctorates in foreign academic centers. The relationship they establish with their professors, fellow students and researchers, with whom they work during their fourth stage of training, must be maintained over time as it represents, in practice, participation in networks or dynamic work teams involving one to several local students, teachers and researchers .

(…) living academic situations in different social realities carries a series of positive lessons…

The experience of experiencing academic situations in different social realities carries a series of positive and enriching lessons both at the level of teaching and research, as well as in the everyday sphere of cultural and university life in the host country, which is characterized in most cases by the search for new approaches, ever-present attempts to break current paradigms in each of the fields of knowledge and the desire to contribute to the development of science and technology for the benefit local communities, to whom they owe, but also global society, of which we are all a part.

Among the many beneficial aspects of the internationalization of higher education, very important is the development of an increasingly lucid level of awareness among Ecuadorian students, administrators, teachers and researchers, regarding the value of verified and accredited academic work, which should produce a virtuous effect that would allow the overcoming of vanity and ostentation – typical for those who understand little and badly – the product of obtained titles which, without having the content to justify them, are nothing more than bombastic and allegorical labels. (OR)