Rector Joan Guàrdia, points out the ten opportunities of the Catalan university system at the Parliament
The Rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, appeared this Tuesday, 19 November, before the Research and University Committee to explain the moment of “radical change” that the European university and research system is going through. Taking as a reference the Draghi Report, The future of European competitiveness, the Rector asked the Parliament to have “the necessary sensitivity and commitment” to meet the needs of Catalan public universities at a time of “profound transition”. Moreover, he highlighted the power of the Catalan university system in terms of capacity, presence, transformation and possibilities, as well as its strengths in common with other leading university systems, such as those of Hong Kong and Shanghai, or with leading institutes such as the Swedish Karolinska Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, appeared this Tuesday, 19 November, before the Research and University Committee to explain the moment of “radical change” that the European university and research system is going through. Taking as a reference the Draghi Report, The future of European competitiveness, the Rector asked the Parliament to have “the necessary sensitivity and commitment” to meet the needs of Catalan public universities at a time of “profound transition”. Moreover, he highlighted the power of the Catalan university system in terms of capacity, presence, transformation and possibilities, as well as its strengths in common with other leading university systems, such as those of Hong Kong and Shanghai, or with leading institutes such as the Swedish Karolinska Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
With the European framework as a starting point, Guàrdia identified ten opportunities that must be addressed “in a decisive and systemic way” during this legislature. These opportunities include, first and foremost, “a financing system that is diametrically opposed to the current one”. I'm not talking about amounts, although this is also the case, but about mechanisms. We rectors spend the year scratching for the funds we negotiate with the Government, and it is impossible to manage a structure as powerful as the UB without knowing what budget we will have next year”. The priority for the Catalan public university system is, according to Joan Guàrdia, the urgency of achieving a realistic and enabling funding system, which allows us to manage the most powerful knowledge and research structure in southern Europe.
The rector of the UB has called for “sensitivity, commitment and confidence” to parliamentarians to provide robustness to public universities. One of the points he highlighted is the need to strengthen the alliance between research centres, universities and university hospitals, so that the resulting “dense and extraordinarily powerful triangle” is symmetrical. It also involves the possibility of consolidating Catalonia's great capacity to attract talent, provided that the legislature is aware that the administrative structure is currently slow, and that it is a priority to accelerate the procedures for reception, infrastructures and spaces.