Doctoral students awarded scholarships by the Generalitat will have a four-year contract (and not three as before)
The measure, which extends the employment relationship by one year, will cost 21 million euros.
BarcelonaThe Catalan government has taken an important step to improve the working conditions of PhD researchers in Catalonia: from now on, those employed by the Generalitat (Catalan government) will have four-year contracts instead of the three-year contracts that have been in place for the past twenty years. The measure, announced by the Department of Research and Universities in a press release, fulfills one of the key objectives of Salvador Illa's government's term. The contractual change involves an investment of €21.1 million to hire a total of 243 predoctoral researchers through the Joan Oró grants. Although this expenditure is only for this year's call for applications, the department emphasizes that, from now on, the government's grant programs for young researchers (Joan Oró-FI and FI-SDUR) will always include a fourth year of employment. However, it should be noted that this change will not affect doctoral students in industry. The measure, approved this Monday, had been long demanded by Catalan doctoral students, as many of them saw how the work to write a doctoral thesis could take up to four years, but in Catalonia, grants only covered the cost of the first three.
A boost for the pool of researchers
The Minister of Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, has stated that extending the grants to a fourth year improves "the conditions for the pool of young researchers in our country" and emphasized that the change aligns with "the Government's strategy to improve talent retention and consolidate scientific careers in Catalonia." The Joan Oró grants are managed by the Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) and can be used to pursue doctoral studies at public and private universities within the Catalan university system, research centers, hospital foundations, and Scientific and Technical Infrastructures. Through this program, the Catalan Government covers the costs of hiring predoctoral researchers for four years, as well as doctoral tuition fees and supplementary funding for international research stays and other training activities.
