Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities

The Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (Spanish: Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas) (Cruch) or simply the Council of Rectors is an organization and legal entity that reunites the rectors of thirty Chilean universities, both public and private with the goal of coordinating the academic efforts in the country and bettering the quality of university education.^[2]

The council was created by law in 1954^[1] and given legal personhood in 1964.^[3]. The members of this organization are the rectors of public and private universities founded before 1981 or derived from those founded before then, and those created by law.

Only universities belonging to Cruch have the right to direct financial support from the state,^[4] and the amount of the Solidarity Fund of University Credit (Spanish: Fondo Solidario de Crédito Universitario) assigned by institution since 1994, which replaced the Fiscal University Credit.^[5]

The universities grouped under the Council of Rectors are commonly called "traditional universities" (Spanish: universidades tradicionales).^[6]

The Council of Rectors was founded August 14, 1954 by law number 11575.^[1] Its first goal was to prepare coordination plans for technological investigations on a yearly basis according to the budgets of the involved universities. It was first composed by the rectors of seven higher education institutions: the University of Chile, the University of Concepción, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, the Technical University of the Estate and the Federico Santa María Technical University.

It was given legal personhood in February 4, 1964 by law number 15561,^[3] in which it was also given the function of giving proposals for initiatives and solutions destined to coordinate, in general, the activities of the universities and to better the performance and quality of university education.

That same year, the Council of Rectors' first regulations were published through a decree by the Ministry of Education.^[7][a] The original goal of the administration of public investigation funds was maintained until the creation of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research in 1967.

Until 1975, the president and legal representative of the Council was the rector of the University of Chile. With the law decree 1287, the president and legal representative of the Council became the current minister of education.^[8]

Through decrees in 1984 and 1986,^[9][7] seventeen more higher education institutiones joined the Council of Rectors.

In 2018, the promulgation of law number 21091 eliminated the veto of private universities founded after 1981, with new requisites for their joining of the Council established in the law.^[10] With these new requirements, the rectors of the Diego Portales University and Alberto Hurtado University were accepted as members of the Council, being the first private universities founded after 1981 to do so.

In 2019, the rector of the University of the Andes, Chile was accepted as a member of the Council, being the latest rector to join it.^[11]