A visit to the Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), was performed between January 7 and 16, by the Deputy Director of CI²MA, researcher Raimund Bürger. The IIST is located in the vicinity of the city of Thiruvananthapuram, also known by its old name Trivandrum, capital of the state of Kerala, on the southern tip of the western coast of India. The main reason for Bürger's trip was the strengthening of collaboration with Sarvesh Kumar, an academic from the Mathematics Department of the IIST, who visited the CI²MA in 2014 and now invited Bürger, Dr. Ricardo Ruiz-Baier and other collaborators. About the stay Bürger comments: "Visiting India for the first time sounds like adventure, knowing the weather, the customs, the food and the way of dressing, among other aspects, a great impression on me." I emphasize the excellent and very cordial treatment I recived there. Among other attentions, a state vehicle with driver was hieed for his daily transfers between the hotel and the institute. "

From the scientific point of view, Bürger gave several talks at IIST and at the Mohandas School of Engineering and Technology. Bürger, Kumar and Ruiz-Baier also agreed to continue collaborating in the line of the development of efficient methods for coupled flow-transport problems (such as those arising in sedimentation-consolidation problems, flow in porous media, and poroelasticity). On this subject, in particular, the application of virtual elements methods (VEM), is also working on Kumar's PhD student, Nitesh Verma, who can benefit from the experience in this subject in CI²MA, in particular from the colleagues David Mora and Gabriel Gatica and their Ph.D. students. The first steps aiming to facilitate a stay of Nitesh Verma in Chile have just been given, thus initiating the inclusion of doctoral students to this collaboration.

Bürger is grateful for the financing of his trip received from the Basal projects AFB1700001, Fondecyt 1170473, and the Department of Mathematical Engineering.