21 3. THE EPIROC UNIVERSITY-COMPANY CHAIR The mining sector is, from every point of view, a complex sector that faces constant challenges and changes at a global and local scale. Critical scenarios as the past Covid-19 pandemic have had a strong impact on the way we develop this important economic activity highlighting the need to accelerate the digital transformation and the adoption of new technologies, such as remote work, digitalization of processes, and interoperability and automation in the mines. As a result, professionals in this industry had to adapt, on many occasions on the fly, to the new needs of mining operations focusing on the productivity of operations and in the safety and well-being of people. In the same way that we are witnessing the continuous innovation and rapidity in the development of technologies in everyday objects such as smartphones, the processes of innovation and development of machinery in the mining sector are constantly increasing and almost immediately applicable to large-scale mining. For higher education institutions worldwide, these new processes and technologies represent a great challenge to be faced by adapting the training of future professionals to the constant changes and the new training profiles required. Likewise, it is relevant to motive new generations to develop an interest in mining as a viable career path. In most cases, higher education institutions manage to keep up with the innovations in the sector and adapt the training of professionals to the new demands of the market. However, in occasions, companies face the fact that recently graduated professionals have limited knowledge in specific areas related to modern technology or have not had access to the required training to successfully enter the work market. It is due to the need for constant updating in the educational training of students that companies must be active promoters of the approach to new trends and needs of the market, in order to achieve mutual benefit: for the higher education institutions, to train professionals with the required profile to enter the work market and, for companies, to be in a position to recruit the best talent in their operations and those of their customers. Basically, and more generally for both, the common benefit for the academia and the industry is to contribute to the development of people, to achieve a more sustainable mining sector for society. In various parts of the world, the University-Company Chair model is often a mode of collaboration to achieve mutual benefit. At UPM, this model has been implemented for more than 25 years along companies from different industrial sectors such as telecommunications, aeronautics, shipbuilding, agriculture, etc. A Chair is a long-term collaboration commitment of a company or entity with the university to promote training, research and knowledge transfer in a thematic area of common interest. In this sense and taking as reference the successful experience of implementing the Epiroc University-Company Chair with the School of Mines and Energy at UPM, the company Epiroc Peru and the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru carried out the implementation of the University-Company Chair at the Professional School of Mining Engineering of the Faculty of Geological, Mining, Metallurgical and Geographical Engineering (FIGMMG). The target group were students in the last semesters, fresh graduates, postgraduate students and teaching staff. The agreement to conduct the Epiroc UniversityCompany Chair at UNMSM had a validity period of 4 years and began operations in the second
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