Barcelona Global sees in the university law approved this Thursday in Congress an opportunity to strengthen the capacity of the Catalan capital to attract foreign students. The new Organic Law of the University System (LOSU) promotes the internationalization of universities, forcing them to define strategies for this purpose, one of the aspects that the lobby chaired by Maite Barrera has most demanded from Minister Joan Subirats. "We have a university system that, due to a lack of internationalization plans, is not as well positioned in the reference rankings," explains its general director, Mercè Conesa.
With the amendments presented by Barcelona Global to the LOSU, as it also did with the startups law, Conesa points out that the Catalan capital can become a preferred destination for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as other cities such as London, Boston, San Francisco and, more recently, Singapore, Shanghai, Copenhagen and Amsterdam already are. This is an expanding market, with 5.1 million students who changed countries to obtain their university degree in 2016, 76% more than in the previous decade and with the forecast of reaching 10.2 million in 2030. Masters are not as concerning, with a proven capacity to attract international audiences from Barcelona and fewer obstacles to facilitate the arrival of their students.
"We want Barcelona to be a higher education hub: it has the prestige and an excellent university offer. Education is at the base of the positioning it can have in the future: competition between cities now is competition for talent," says Conesa. In its demands to improve access to degrees, Barcelona Global has been accompanied by the president of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Andreu Mas-Colell; the director of the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE), Teresa Garcia-Milà; the executive president of Roca Junyent, Joan Roca; the lawyer of Roca Junyent Joaquim Via, and the partner of Crea Inversión, Marcel Prunera, coordinated by the project director of Barcelona Global, Cristina Valiñani.
In addition to the obligation to have internationalization plans, Barcelona Global celebrates other points incorporated into the new law, such as the commitment to alliances with universities from other international countries, which will allow the creation of new three-year degrees. Unlike the four-year degrees that exist in Spain, the Barcelona lobby points out that in the rest of Europe most are three years, which generates a competitive disadvantage compared to other countries when it comes to attracting foreign students.
Another proposal from the association introduced in the LOSU has been to adjust the duration of the visa with the duration of the training. Until now, international students had to renew their visas several times during their stay in Spain. A hurdle that has also been streamlined recently, in this case with the approval of the startups law, has been the possibility of extending the visa to look for internships or start a business for a minimum period of two years, as is already done in other European Union countries. The startups law has also simplified the visa application process.
"If we have a good positioning in the world of higher education, we are creating talent that has already chosen Barcelona when deciding where to study and can then decide whether to stay to work or set up a company," says Conesa. And, in the event that they return to their countries of origin, the general director of Barcelona Global argues that, as their careers advance, the time will come when they will be making decisions and may think of Barcelona to locate subsidiaries.
"If we have a good positioning in the world of higher education, we are creating talent that has already chosen Barcelona when deciding where to study and can then decide whether to stay to work or set up a company"However, there are still some barriers to overcome for the degrees offered by universities in the Catalan capital to attract more students, warns the project director of Barcelona Global, Cristina Valiñani. In this regard, the association is working to introduce improvements in the areas of competence that fall to the Generalitat. Specifically, the association asks for the Baccalaureate degree to be recognized for students from EU countries, with a university agreement and International Baccalaureate over 14 points instead of over 10. As of today, they have to take two exams to complete their grade.
The lobby also demands for students from countries without a university agreement to avoid having to wait a year for their academic records to be validated. For this reason, it asks to recover the pre-evaluation that Catalan universities used to do, which allowed them to join studies while waiting for their curricula to be validated. The last pending issue for Barcelona Global is to reserve places for non-EU students, in those degrees with an excess of offer, with the aim of facilitating their decision to move and giving them time to complete the procedures.