Imagine a university asking students to submit a written assignment about reading a book. Many submit it. Few have read it. All pass the course. The system works, some would say. I would say the system pretends to work, which is not the same. Something similar happens with the gender equality plans that Horizon Europe (the European Commission's 2021-2027 research funding program) requires research centers and universities to have as a condition for accessing European funding.For the first time in the history of European research framework programmes, having an equality plan in force is a requirement. For this plan, the Commission set 4 mandatory elements: a public document signed by management, dedicating resources to it, sex and gender disaggregated data, and training for staff. And, in parallel, it recommended addressing 5 areas: work-life balance, equity in leadership, equality in hiring and professional careers, the integration of the gender perspective in research and teaching, and measures against gender-based violence. On paper, it is a lever for structural change. On paper.The problem is that the requirement has created, in some contexts, only a formal compliance. Organizations that hastily draft the document. Plans that no one has consulted with staff or students. Commitments without deadlines, training sessions attended only by the convinced. The letter of the regulation, complete. The spirit, absent. And the Commission knows it: it has already announced adjustments for this year (without waiting for the new framework program) to verify its real compliance.It is very clear that we are talking about institutional culture. And changing the culture of an institution requires leadership to assume it as a real priority, not as an external obligation. It assumes that all personnel, from the newest to the management positions, understand why equality improves the quality of science. Research has repeatedly shown that diversity in teams produces more solid science, more interesting questions are asked, and biases that homogeneous teams do not see are detected. When a clinical trial does not stratify by sex, or when an algorithm is trained with data that overrepresent a profile, the results are, at best, incomplete. At worst, harmful.Let's return to students and their work. The difference between submitting the work and reading the book is that if you haven't read it, it couldn't have changed you at all. Universities and research centers that want to compete in the European space must not only have the equality plan signed; they must be able to demonstrate that their policies work, that the data improves, that culture changes. Not a document saved on the institutional website, but an organization that has changed from within. And this is not achieved by signing a paper. A paper does not make spring. But an institution that truly fulfills it, does.

The rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, becomes emotional when explaining the honoris causa he has just awarded to the medical director of BioNTech: “They are one step away from finding a vaccine for cancer. Do you know what that means?” He tells us this to a group of members of the UB Social Council, gathered on a cold March morning. The German Özlem Türeci has indeed predicted that in ten years, treating cancer with mRNA vaccines will be commonplace. This is one of the “wonderful things,” as the rector says, that happen in our universities daily and which do not always receive the attention they deserve.

To make the Catalan university system more inclusive and accessible to everyone. With this principle in mind, the country's universities have been promoting initiatives for years to facilitate access to higher education and ensure that more and more students can pursue a degree. Among the mechanisms to make this possible are a wide variety of tools: from scholarship and financial aid programs to support services for students with disabilities or specific needs. In parallel, new, more flexible learning models have also been implemented, allowing students to combine their studies with other personal or professional commitments.

For decades, universities have emphasized one concept: specialization. Their classrooms have produced economists, political scientists, philosophers—defined profiles trained in disciplines with clear boundaries. However, it is increasingly difficult to address major contemporary debates from a single perspective. A multitude of challenges arise: how to regulate artificial intelligence without stifling innovation, how to guarantee economic growth without exacerbating inequalities, how to govern society in a context of polarization and climate crisis… The degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics is based on this observation: complexity is not addressed by fragmenting knowledge, but by doing.

Catalonia's oldest university – founded in 1300 as the Estudi General – now has a woman's face. The woman from Lleida. Maria Àngels Balsells Bailón is the first rector of the University of Lleida And one of only three in the entire Catalan university system. She shies away from individual triumphs and attributes it to "a collective advance." "I hope that one day this won't be news and people will simply talk about merit," she says.

The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, appointed a new Minister of Education, Science, and Universities yesterday, Monday, replacing Emilio Viciana, who had held the position since 2023. The new minister will be Mercedes Zarzalejo, a member of parliament from the People's Party. This change—the first of the current term under Díaz Ayuso's government—comes amidst ongoing negotiations and the processing of the regional university law and the Controversy over the underfunding of public universitiesAccording to EFE, citing Madrid government sources, the change in the Education Ministry is motivated by a need for change and the implementation of a university model that, in Ayuso's opinion, the now former Minister of Education failed to lead. Specifically, the Madrid president had tasked Viciana "more than two years ago" with "a program to support, strengthen, and modernize Madrid's universities," which she did not see fulfilled. Therefore, she "has decided to give new impetus" to the Ministry with the appointment of Zarzalejo. The same sources state that the new Minister has taken on the same mandate and must "carry out this ambitious university project." The Madrid government avoids placing the Law on Higher Education, Universities, and Science (LESUC) at the center of this project, defining it instead as "just another tool that the Minister started working on but which also failed to bear fruit."

The academic offerings of universities in the State continue to prioritize student preferences over the needs of the labor market, and although higher education has halved the unemployment rate in a decade, this achievement is overshadowed by the increasing precariousness of these graduates, according to the fifteenth edition of the report. The Spanish university in figuresThe report, prepared by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE), reveals that 17.5% of students work part-time year-round (21% for women), compared to 8.3% in the OECD, reflecting the "persistent precariousness of the Spanish labor market." The report concludes that demand for the Spanish university system will remain stable, at around 1.7 million undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students, over the next twenty years, and lists three clear challenges: increased public funding, a decisive boost to knowledge transfer, and the reversion of teaching and research to the universities themselves. "Having a university education is an excellent investment," says Eva Alcón, president of CRUE and rector of Jaume I University, while acknowledging that there is still "room for improvement."

"We must save the current situation of Catalan," says Núria Graner. She even changed her major and this year began studying philology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) after seeing the Tria Filologia campaign and realizing the state of Catalan in Barcelona: "They don't even understand you in Catalan, they look down on you if you speak it, and the Language Policy Law isn't being enforced." Beside her is Aniol Torreblanca, a fellow student at the UAB, who has chosen the same path: "I speak Catalan with everyone and correct them if they make a mistake, affectionately, because I believe we must take care of Catalan and spread it," he says, adding that his degree will give him the knowledge and authority to do so. Further afield, Arnau Trilla, who studies at the University of Lleida, says: "I was already interested in the humanities and the Catalan language, but given the decline in its use in urban areas, I wanted to help address this and promote Catalan among young people, who are losing it." These are three of the students who have received the first scholarship to study Catalan philology from the Generalitat (Catalan government), an initiative that aims to attract more students and graduates in Catalan.

Switzerland is a world apart. Always. The Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) received a complaint against a researcher who was receiving a María Zambrano grant, which is incompatible with any other funding or resources, because the woman simultaneously held a 42-hour postdoctoral contract at the University of Basel. But the Swiss institution refused to provide any information. "For reasons of personal data protection, they did not want to inform us of the contractual relationship or any details of the researcher's personal situation," was Basel's response to the UAB, echoing the response the Swiss university gave to this newspaper. In other words, Catalan institutions are unable to determine whether their employees are committing alleged fraud.

The government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso has avoided providing figures on the participation in the strike that began this Wednesday at Madrid's public universities to protest the underfunding that is "suffocating" higher education. While the Madrid government has tried to downplay the protest, claiming that it is "politicized" and "has no justification whatsoever," the organizers of the strike say that participation has ranged between 50% and 90%, depending on the campus. The student platforms of Madrid's six public universities (Complutense, Rey Juan Carlos, Carlos III, Autonomous University of Madrid, Polytechnic University, and University of Alcalá de Henares) called the strike, which will continue until tomorrow, with the support of the unions CCOO, UGT, CGT, and CNT. The protest is in response to the budget proposal put forward by the government of the Community of Madrid.which will increase funding for public universities by 6.5%. Student groups consider this insufficient because, according to their calculations, the budget for public higher education will only increase from 0.44% of the regional GDP to 0.46%, and they believe that anything less than approaching 1% is inadequate. Conversely, the executive branch previously argued that the education budget represents more than 4% of the entire budget of the Community of Madrid.

In the final stretch of his eight-year termQuim Salvi, the parish priest of the University of Girona (UdG), receives ARA in the beautiful Les Àligues building—a former military barracks in the Barri Vell (Old Quarter) that exemplifies the university's transformation of the historic center—eager to take stock but also with a long-term vision. Currently, the UdG has four campuses in the city: the Barri Vell campus, the city center campus, the Montilivi campus, and the Research and Innovation Park in La Creueta. And unlike other universities, it is finding that more and more students are choosing it as their first option: a direct consequence of the cost of living in Barcelona and the difficulties students face in finding affordable housing. The next parish priest's challenge will be the creation of the new Health Campus on the border between Girona and Salt, where the new Trueta stadium is to be built. The elections will be held on November 27, and the new parish priest is expected to take up his post around Christmas time.

From the moment a university decides to launch a new degree program until the first students graduate, approximately seven years typically elapse. This includes the four standard years of a degree program, but also the roughly three years spent developing the project and completing the process that determines which degrees are offered at Catalan universities. Within this process, one of the key and mandatory steps is that the degree proposal receives a favorable evaluation from the Catalan University Quality Agency (AQU). Only one in ten projects passes this filter. This information comes from data compiled by AQU, which ARA has consulted, regarding the number of proposals for new degrees, master's programs, or doctoral programs that the agency has evaluated in the last five years to issue a report certifying the quality of these future programs.

"If there's no respite for public universities, there will be no peace for those who are suffocating us: class by class, department by department, faculty by faculty, we are going to build a strike that will shake those who mistreat the right to a public university." With this phrase, the student platforms of the six public universities in Madrid (Complutense, Rey Juan Carlos, Carlos III, Autónoma, Politécnica, and Alcalá de Henares) stood up against the underfunding by Isabel Díaz Ayuso's government and called a two-day strike for "the end of November."

The ritual has been repeated a couple of times each academic year for many years. It's been widely reported that an association has invited a far-right politician or a politician aligned with them to the Autonomous University of Barcelona, whether Rosa Díez, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, or the latest in this series, Vito Quiles. On the appointed day, far-left student associations have already organized to disrupt the event and prevent the alleged protest from taking place. conference. The Mossos d'Esquadra must intervene to prevent more violent clashes. (Some of the police, by the way, beat the students with barely concealed rage.) Afterwards, everyone goes home and that's it, a year ago today.

Every start of the academic year is a good time to renew commitments and look ahead with ambition. This year, more than ever, is an opportunity to reaffirm what makes the Catalan public university system an essential engine of progress: its diversity.

In front of the rise of new private university centers In recent years, some of which do not meet the quality criteria required by the Spanish government, the Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday the modification of the decree that toughens the criteria for the creation, recognition, and authorization of new universities. Spanish President Pedro Sánchez warned last March that he would put an end to the free bar of "university beach bars that do not meet the standard that should be required of higher education, and which she said operate as "academies" and as "a degree-selling machine" endorsed by some regional governments. Thus, from now on, the communities that want to authorize the creation of a university issued by ANECA (the state quality agency, which depends on the Spanish government) or by equivalent regional agencies, as is the case of AQU Catalunya. and Universities, Diana Morant, there was a quality report prepared by technicians from her ministry that was mandatory, but not binding. Andalusia and the Canary Islands have also moved forward with centers, despite the unfavorable response from experts. Canary Islands. In addition, there are also five other projects in process without a favorable report: two in Madrid, one in the Canary Islands and, amending some conditions, it may be favorable in Extremadura. collected some of the allegations raised by the Generalitat.

According to the report Key facts about the Spanish university system, presented by Morant, since 2005, 24 private universities have been created from scratch in the Spanish state, with the majority of public universities having almost equaled the number of publicly owned universities (46 and 50, respectively). "But, beyond the number of universities, the most striking thing is the increase in the number of students in private universities and the stagnation in public universities: in the last decade, public universities have barely grown (2%), while private universities have grown by 129%," Morant reported. Currently, according to the study, 30% of students study at private universities. "Ten years ago, it was only 15%, and twenty years ago, 10%," the minister explained.

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The University of Hong Kong (HKU) will open its first campus in Europe in the city of Barcelona. Specifically, it will do so in a newly constructed building in the 22@ district, on Llacuna Street. HKU, which is ranked thirteenth in the global ranking of business schools compiled by the Financial Times, has purchased a building in the Catalan capital in a transaction involving a real estate consultancy firm and Barcelona City Council.

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Good news once again for the University of Barcelona (UB). According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2025, popularly known as the Shanghai ranking and considered the most prestigious in the world, the Catalan university is once again the highest-ranked in Spain and the only one to crack the top 200. Behind them, but also with very good results, are the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), which are among the 301st and 400 best in the world.

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Rolf Tarrach Siegel (Valencia, 1948) is a professor of quantum physics. He has served as president of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), rector of the University of Luxembourg, and president of the European University Association.

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Being efficient and competitive. Recognizing market opportunities before the rest of the money is better. Teaching in the faculties of economics and business is a challenge. However, the landscape is beginning to change, at least. Chair of Social Economy at Tecnocampus-UPF.

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