university

The University of Lleida (Western Catalonia) will be leading the INNOSTORAGE Project regarding efficient thermal storage. They will focus their study on improving energy-storing by using Phase Change Materials and their temperature changes. The project, which is financed by the European Commission, aims at reducing CO2 emissions and saving energy by finding new efficient energy-storing systems. Thanks to the Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES), INNOSTORAGE brings together searchers from Catalonia, France, Israel, the United-States, Australia, and New-Zealand.

The founder and CEO of technology company GFT announced that they will create 500 new jobs in Catalonia in the coming years. In an exclusive interview with the CNA, Ulrich Dietz, stated that he has “aggressive plans to increase the staff” in Greater Barcelona and Lleida. GFT  specialises in developing technological solutions for the banking and insurance sectors, with a turnover of €231 million in 2012. With several offices in Germany, the company is based in Stuttgart and is present in Brazil, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, US and UK. A quarter of GFT employees throughout the world are based in Catalonia. Most of them work in Greater Barcelona, which is the company’s “hub” for the European market. Dietz explained that he has plans to develop Lleida’s facilities, which currently employ 40 people, “significantly”.

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, which is one of Australia’s main universities, will offer Master and PhD programmes in Barcelona. The RMIT University, which has three campuses in Melbourne and two in Vietnam, is now coming to Europe and will coordinate its activities in the continent from Barcelona. The Australian education institution will also cooperate with several Catalan universities, in particular the UPC, the UPF and ELISAVA. The Catalan Minister for Economy and Knowledge, Andreu Mas-Colell, attended the opening ceremony. He underlined that Australia’s higher education system is “the most internationalised in the world”. He also stated that the RMIT campus in Barcelona “is a bridge towards Europe, the Mediterranean Area and Latin America”.

The Consortium for Advanced Studies of Barcelona (CASB), made up of 9 of the most important universities from the United States and 4 Catalan public universities from Barcelona, is considering implementing international masters degree programmes and summer courses together. 300 American students have already come to Catalonia to study through the CASB. According to the American universities, the Catalan language is not an obstacle but an added value to the cultural and social experience of studying in Barcelona.

The Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) is one of the 3 centres with the highest scientific production internationally in its field. It is directed by Eudald Carbonell, the palaeontologist who has been directing the Atapuerca site since its discovery. Atapuerca was where the oldest human specimens in Europe were found, the so-called Homo Antecessor. The IPHES started its activities in 2006 but due to its increasing relevance it needed more room. Since last June the institute has moved to a new building in the Sescelades Campus of the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) in southern Catalonia. On Friday the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, officially unveiled the facilities. The new building cost €6 million and it has 3,000 square metres to host 62 members of staff.

A study undertaken by the Catalan Association of Public Universities shows that 64% of all funds for research came from public or private competition processes. This shows the Catalan university system’s capacity to attract this type of funds, which leads the study to conclude that the system is “solid”, “at the forefront” in Spain and “comparable” to the university systems of the most advanced EU countries. In 2012, the total budget for research in Catalonia’s public universities was €346 million, which represented 20% of their total budget.

The new city government is considering the continuation of a project started by the last Mayor. The venture proposed by the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), the specialist higher education institution co-founded by Paul McCartney, is to open a Barcelona version (BIPA) in the coastal town of Sitges. The previous proposals included a large scale urban development plan, however the new Sitges Town Council would now use existing buildings. A public competition to manage the project could be opened in the upcoming months.

From Sunday to Wednesday, the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), located in Tarragona, hosted a chemistry conference in order to discuss the latest discoveries in this discipline. Six chemistry Nobel Prize winners participated in the ‘Southern Catalonia Nobel Campus’, as well as Finn Kydland, who won the Nobel Prize of Economics in 2004. Kydland gave the opening speech. The chemistry days took place at the PortAventura conference centre, located next to the Costa Daurada amusement park.

The Barcelona-raised sociologist Manuel Castells has received the 2012 Holberg International Memorial Prize in Bergen, Norway. This award is considered to be the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in the field of sociology. The jury considered his book ‘Communication Power’ to be “essential for a new understanding of politics”. Castells holds the Wallis Annenberg Chair at the University of Southern California, he is Research Professor at Catalonia’s distance-learning university (UOC) and Professor Emeritus at the University of California (Berkeley).

Catalan universities are present at the Annual Conference and Expo of the Association of International Educators (NAFSA), which is the world’s largest event of its kind. The conference is organised in the United States and this year’s edition is being held in Houston (Texas) until Friday June 1st. The website www.studyincatalonia.com has been presented and aims to promote the studies offered by Catalan public and private universities worldwide. The presence of foreign students in postgraduate and master courses at Catalan universities increased by 34% in the last school year (2010-2011).

Teachers, administrative staff, students and parents have protested against budget cuts by the Spanish and Catalan Governments affecting primary, secondary and university education. The protest was organised throughout Spain. In Barcelona, 25,000 people according to the police and 150,000 people according to the organisers demonstrated through the city centre. Protests were also organised in other Catalan cities, such as Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.

The Catalan capital proposes an Art Nouveau pavilion in the former Sant Pau Hospital, located near the Sagrada Familia, as the organisation’s headquarters. The former St Pau Hospital pavilions will host in a few months several international organisations, such as an institute of the United Nations’ University and the European Forest Institute.

Thousands of students protested in Barcelona against the reduction in the university budget and the increase in tuition fees. The demonstration was peaceful and was observed by the police, in order to prevent any possible incidents, since it coincided with the European Central Bank Governing Council, being held in the Catalan capital.

Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in collaboration with a team from Slovakia’s Science Academy, have developed a cylinder that is invisible to magnetic fields and any object put inside cannot be detected. No one had ever achieved such results in such a simple manner, with much precision in the theoretical calculations and conclusive results in the laboratory. They believe this scientific discovery might be a first step towards light’s invisibility. Their research has been published in the prestigious journal ‘Science’.

Catalan university staff and students protested against the budget cuts, temporary worker lay offs and an increase in university fees. Peaceful demonstrations with thousands of participants were organised in Barcelona, Tarragona, Girona, and Lleida. However, the Barcelona demonstration did not stick to the schedule and split into different protests. A group of students became violent and broke the glass at a bank branch, threw eggs at the stock exchange, burned three containers and one vehicle, and occupied the rectorate at Barcelona University. 500 students concentrated in front of the Mobile World Congress, which is taking place in Barcelona, and police prevented them from breaking in.