The Rector remarks the University is a fundamental pillar to reach a “fairer, free, solidary and balanced” society.
The Rector of the University of Barcelona, Dídac Ramírez, presented over the course of the last Senate -in which he was maximum representative of the institution-, a summary of his eight years of governance. “My response as a rector has always been, without doubt, to defend higher education as a tool for change, cohesion and social integration, and state structuring to create specific goals to strengthen our hope”, said Ramírez, who highlighted that the University is a fundamental pillar to reach a “fairer, free, solidary and balanced” society.
Changes in the academic order, such as the adaptation to the European higher education space or the recent debate on 3+2, financial cuts, labor rights decrease or “a renewal tax at its lowest” were factors that made governance difficult and still have impact on some aspects such as the inadequate public finance to the University. “However, nowadays our University has improved in rankings, scientific performance, teaching innovation, transference and finance sustainability”, said the rector, who thanked the university community for their effort and resource management, which were fundamental to maintain the excellence position as well as national and international importance of the University of Barcelona.
The Rector of the University of Barcelona, Dídac Ramírez, presented over the course of the last Senate -in which he was maximum representative of the institution-, a summary of his eight years of governance. “My response as a rector has always been, without doubt, to defend higher education as a tool for change, cohesion and social integration, and state structuring to create specific goals to strengthen our hope”, said Ramírez, who highlighted that the University is a fundamental pillar to reach a “fairer, free, solidary and balanced” society.
Changes in the academic order, such as the adaptation to the European higher education space or the recent debate on 3+2, financial cuts, labor rights decrease or “a renewal tax at its lowest” were factors that made governance difficult and still have impact on some aspects such as the inadequate public finance to the University. “However, nowadays our University has improved in rankings, scientific performance, teaching innovation, transference and finance sustainability”, said the rector, who thanked the university community for their effort and resource management, which were fundamental to maintain the excellence position as well as national and international importance of the University of Barcelona.
Eight years of mandate
Ramírez talked about the programmatic lines that guided his management. Defending a fair finance and the diversification of new fund resources, the recognition of the university autonomy, implanting the culture of responsibility —with the creation of the Office for Internal Control, Risks and Corporate Social Responsibility—, improving the excellence of the university services or creating a scientific-humanistic model —were the focuses of the first mandate (2008-2012). However, modernizing the University, internationalization, public-private collaboration, strengthening the University of Barcelona as a social agent, heritage value and equality defense were the main actions of the second mandate (2013-2016), according to the rector.
Entering the League of European Research Universities (LERU) in 2009 —which marked the entrance of the first Spanish university in a distinguished European research elite- or the service quality accreditations such as the Complementary Training Area, CRAI or Scientific and Technology Centers, among others, were marked as important by the rector. He also highlighted the relevance of BKC and HUBc knowledge as an international excellence campus, as well as the Severo Ochoa nominations to IRB and IBEC, and María de Maeztu to the Institute of Cosmos Sciences and the Barcelona Graduated School of Mathematics.
Dídac Ramírez also commented on the “commitment to equality” and prioritizing social concern. He talked about the bkUB program “which since 2012 has defrayed calls to prevent students from having economic restrictions as a limit for their studies”. He also commented on the programs Studia (for students with long-term diseases), Fem Via (for disabled people), and the one of social policy and access to University (to enable collectives with risk of exclusion having access to university), as well as promoting gender equality. “The University of Barcelona is defined for their main being reasons: a tool for social cohesion, reducing poverty and promoting cooperation” said the rector.
Budget balance and deficit reduction
"We went from having a finance budget over 80% with public funds to falling under the 70%" said the rector when starting the analysis on the economic state of the University. Ramírez said that over the eight years of his mandate they recovered the budget balance and reduced the deficit that was around 30 million euros: from 82 to 53 million (17 million were cash deficit and 36 were risk, where provisions were doubled over the last eight years). Therefore everything went back to financial stability.
Regarding the evaluation of the government management during 2015, Ramírez said that they reached almost 70% of the indicators of the directing Plan, predicting to get to the 93% by the end of 2016. The rector highlighted that the impact Plan from the teaching staff, advances in Carpeta Docent (teaching folder), good results in Horizon 2020 conference, and the fact that the University of Barcelona is a scientific dissemination reference, or its national and international position in social networks.
The rector finished his speech warning about the precipitated responses taken in cases such as Brexit, in which it is important to make sure that academic cooperation and research with British centres will still be on, and also warned on populist speeches in other countries, in our surroundings and other continents. Ramírez thanked the members of his staff and university community that stuck with him during his eight years of mandate: “Despite the hard times, the University, people, we all found ways to give efficient responses”.
During the debate time after the report, members of the Senate from different collectives gave their opinion about Dídac Ramírezʼs mandate. On the one hand, they highlighted the advances that the institution underwent during that period, mostly regarding research and economic research; on the other hand they also commented on negative aspects such as raising the university taxes.
Academic information
The Vice-Rector of Academic Policy, Students and Quality of the University of Barcelona, Gaspar Rosselló, presented a report on the results of the university entrance examinations. He highlighted that the University of Barcelona went a 6% higher regarding first preferences in the list of degree options. Rosselló gladly commented on the increase of students who enter the University of Barcelona with an entry mark over 13. In this case, there are 215 students with those marks, 105 of them chose to study Medicine.
Regarding accreditations done by the University Quality Agency (AQU) over this academic year, the Vice-Rector said that there have been twelve degrees evaluated with specialist minors of excellence, out of the fifty that have already a definite report.
Modification of the election regulation to adapt online voting
The Senate of the University of Barcelona approved of —with ninety votes in favour, twenty-three abstention and no votes against it- the addition of the regulation of online voting in academic staff elections as well as administration and services by the members of the Senate and the elections of academic staff in school and single organs.