The Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh) was founded in Valdivia in 1954, mainly through the initiative of local citizens. It was created in response to the urgent need to establish an institute of higher education that was focused on local needs and interests, decentralizing knowledge, research, culture, and the arts in a way that was revolutionary in Chile at the time.

The university’s endeavors stem from the life of the southern and austral zones of Chile. UACh enjoys an exceptional geographic position, with its campuses stretching from Valdivia, the entryway to Chilean Patagonia, to Coyhaique, the second largest city within Patagonia proper. Accordingly, undergraduate and graduate education is developed through a dynamic interaction with the surrounding communities and territories. The university has also maintained its founding links to Germany, a nation that has a strong historical connection to southern Chile as a whole. Meanwhile, the greatly expanded UACh of today has links to myriad institutions at the local, national, and international levels, especially within its own Latin American sphere.

The research carried out by the Universidad Austral de Chile—which covers the areas of natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical sciences and human health, agriculture and forest sciences, and social sciences and humanities—exhibits a high degree of scientific productivity, sustaining a large and diverse range of publications and projects with significant international collaboration.

These characteristics allow our students to receive a comprehensive education, one rooted in local and regional realities but also oriented toward international contexts. It is our goal to bring together students and professors from diverse corners of the world and create a constant exchange of ideas, experiences, and perspectives.

The unique attributes of the Universidad Austral de Chile have positioned it as one of the top five universities in Chile as well as 17th in all of Latin America according to the Times Higher Education rankings, which include the top 300 institutions of higher education in the region.