"We have been at the service of the Pan American and Parapan American Games, the largest sporting event in our history. We want it to go well and we want to do that grain of sand that we can contribute," Usach Rector Rodrigo Vial said.

"We need sport to be inserted in our society, for our people to play sports, it is a fundamental key to improving, for example, mental health."

Some 600 of the 17,000 volunteers selected for Santiago 2023 are drawn from students attending the university.

The agreement was signed at the Santiago University’s Aula Magna Theater of the house of studies in a ceremony attended by over a thousand student volunteers.

"An academic lung within the entire country and that we can work together developing these projects helps us so that our people arrive with a high standard of knowledge of the tasks and of everything that must be done before, during and after the Games," Santiago 2023 executive director Harold Mayne-Nicholls explained.

Santiago 2023 mascot Fiu, the multicoloured bird joined Usach mascot Usachín the lion for the official signing of the deal.

The Pan American Games are set to begin on October 20.