Archive for category: News

On June 1, A-4U welcomed a high-profile delegation of Indian professionals that visit Spain as part of “Future Indian Leaders” programme.

This programme is organised by Foundation Council Spain-India, of which A-4U is part, and aims to give selected Indian professionals, opinion-makers in business, academia, research and media, a first-hand experience of today’s Spain. As part of their visit to Spain, the Indian delegation visited UAb and UPF on June 1.

At UPF the delegation was received by the Vice-Rector for International Relations Josep Ferrer, members of academic staff at the Department of Economics and Business and the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, and also visited UPF campus. At UAB, the delegation was welcomed by the Vice.Rector for International Relations Mercedes Unzeta, participated in meetings with representatives of the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Biosciences, and were given a campus tour. These visits are expected to strenghten existing links between A-4U universities and India.

During their week’s stay in Spain, from 28 May to 1 June, the delegation also visited a number of governmental institutions and businesses in Madrid, Valladolid, and Barcelona. Members of the delegation are:

ZReuben Abraham. Clinical Assistant professor and Executive Director, Centre for Emerging Markets Solutions, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Sanaa Arora. Research Analyst, Strategic Foresight Group (think-tank).

Indrajit Hazra. Novelist and jouranlist. Writer of Sunday Hindustan Times column “Red Herring”.

Sanjeev Kapoor. Chef and entrepreneur. TV presenter, Khana Khazana TV Show, Foodfood Channel.

Alok Nanavaty. Director, Centrum (financial company).

Sunitha Raju. Chairperson (Research), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

Trilochan Sastry. Former Dean and Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Sanjeev Sharma. Professor and Head of Department of Biotechnology, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology.

Samarth Singh. CEO, Hybrid Content (brand management company).

Sharon Thomas. Responsable de películas clásicas e independientes, Sony Pictures India.

Foundation Council Spain-India (FCEI) exists to channel efforts made by different sectors of the Spanish society to promote relations with India. The Foundation participates in several government initiatives, including visits to India, cultural and educational activities, investment forums, and meetings sponsored by the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade (ICEX), and other business organisations. The Foundation is made up of five Spanish ministries, the city councils of Madrid and Barcelona, a number of banks and building societies, businesses, universities and cultural institutions, such as the Cervantes Institute and Casa Asia.

More information on the programme is availble on FCEI website.

The Observatory of Spanish University Research (Observatorio de la Actividad Investigadora de la Universidad Española – IUNE) has been launched. This Observatory is a database, whcih allows the R+D+i activities at public and private Spanish universities to be seen and analysed using 6 categories of data and 42 indicators. This initiative, coordinated by the Laboratory for Metric Information Studies (Laboratorio de Estudios Métricos de la Información – LEMI) at Carlos III University of Madrid, has been developed as part of Alianza 4 Universidades (A-4U), which also includes Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

iUNE Observatory is the most complete platform for evaluating scientific activity and knowledge transfer that currently exists within the Spanish university system, since – according to its creators, a team of more than twenty researchers from A-4U – it includes dimensions that are not dealt with in other national or international rankings. Having initially been financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, it currently receives support from the Ministry of Education, which considers this laboratory the official source for indicators of research undertaken in Spanish university system.

With this tool, the most significant results of scientific and innovation activities taking place at 73 Spanish universities (48 public and 25 private) can be seen. The dynamic open web platform that has been created (www.iune.es) allows the user to visualize data from a set period and obtain graphics automatically. To do this, the platform is based on a range of 42 clear, simple, and comparable indicators of university activity, grouped into 6 categories, such as the number of professors, the recognition that they obtained, the characteristics of their scientific activities (production, productivity, collaboration, impact, visibility, etc.), their competitiveness in obtaining projects, innovation (patents, licenses, spin-offs, etc.), and the education capacity of the institutions they do research for (scholarships, aid, contracts, thesis, etc.)

Information provided in these six categories dates back to 2001 and is updated annually on all of the indicators obtained, thanks to the data that is gathered from contrasted and accessible information sources, such as the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (Centro para el Desarrollo Técnico Industrial – CDTI), National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (Comisión Nacional Evaluadora de la Actividad Investigadora – CNEAI), Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – FECYT), National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística – INE), Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas – OEPM), Office for the Transfer of Research Results Network (Red OTRI), and Web for Science platform, among others.

Increasing productivity in Spanish universities

This set of variables enables the measurement of different aspects of research activity. “By using these indicators, each university can determine the characteristics of its activity and examine its position within the Spanish university system, based on its scientific activity or the subject areas it wishes to analyse”, explains Professor Elias Sanz, coordinator of iUNE Observatory and head of UC3M Laboratory for Metric Information Studies (LEMI). “With the creation of the Observatory – he adds – an attempt is being made to overcome the complete and systematic lack of information that exists with regard to the scientific activity being carried out at Spanish universities”.

The results obtained show, for example, an overall annual increase in productivity at all universities. At the end of the analysed period, this increase reaches 95.31% since year 2002. “It is interesting to see that 5 of the 10 most productive universities are small, which shows that it is useful to weigh the absolute values of publications by the number of professors”, comments Professor Elias Sanz.

In order to develop iUNE, to which various research groups from the universities involved have dedicated over three years of work, guidelines have been adopted, which must follow the classification of universities, both in the international context and within Spain. In addition, it has been decided that the Berlin principles will continue to be followed in the creation of rankings of this type, which have become a useful tool for evaluating activities in higher education institutions.

More information can be found on iUNE website.

From 23 to 26 of April, A-4U delegation travelled to South Africa on an institutional visit to a number of leading universities in the country and governmental bodies concerned with higher education.

The aim of the visit was to identify common areas of interest and to discuss specific initiatives such as staff and student exchange programmes, joint seminars, and participation in the European Framework Programme projects. The following institutions were visited:

University of Pretoria

University of Witwatersrand

University of Stellenbosch

University of Cape Town

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Ministry of Higher Education and Training

national Research Foundation (part of the Ministry of Science and Technology)

Higher Education South Africa (an association of all South African public universities)

Spanish Embassy in South Africa

As a result of the visit, A-4U started the process of signing general agreements with the above universities, which will open the way to setting up student and staff exchange programmes as well as research collaborations.

Internationalisation is one of the main objectives for creating the Alliance. The four universities have developed a joint strategy of internationalisation with priority in BRIC countries: India, Brazil, Russia, and China. Recently, the BRIC group has expanded to include South Africa, an emerging economy that is currently leading on the African continent. The visit to South Africa was co-funded by the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX), which supports A-4U international activities.

On March 22, Alianza 4 Universidades was invited to participate in the “Bridging Barcelona and Madrid” radio programme, hosted by Onda Cero Catalunya. The talk featured Dr. Manel López Bejar, Vice-Rector for Research at UAB, who was at Onda Cero studios in Barcelona, and Dr. Álvaro Escribano, Vice-Rector for International Relations at UC3M, who took part in the programme via telephone.

The Vice-Rectors discussed the activities that are being carried out by the Alliance in the universities-members of the consortium based in Madrid and Barcelona.

The talk (in Spanish) can be heard and downloaded here.