“Spanish universities are not as good as they should”

This week has been presented, one more year, the report La Universidad Española en Cifras. The meeting took place in the Spanish National Library. It is a key point for the agents involved in the improvement of the universitary system. It is time for analyzing, because CRUE (Conferencia de Rectores de la Universidad Española) has pointed that out concerning information. Spain is one of the less developed countries in EU and OECD considering R&D investments. Incomes for research and transference go back a 25%.

As Segundo Píriz, president of CRUE, said: “Priorities of the most developed countries has gone to private and public R&D investments”. Spain has moved away from this trend: we are the only developed countri reducing its spend –7,5%

This report give us valuable information for taking decitions about universities. All the speakers pointed out that we need to orientate ourselves to innovation, as H2020 documentation recommend. As Carmen Vela, Secretary of Research, Development and Innovation, said: spanish univerities are not as good as they should given the talent they have”.

Research is a very important issue, but it is also needed to bet on innovation and foment relations with private companies, so the investments can revert to society. Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education (UNIR iTED) of the Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR) symbolyse the strong commitement for this goals. Daniel Burgos, director of UNIR iTED sais the Institute is a new push to a full researcher trajectory. UNIR iTED strategy focuses on developing innovation and useful transference. Among the last activities UNIR iTED has organized is the Martin Wolpers Award to best eLearning paper to Inge Molenaar at the European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) 2017, which took place in Tallin in September. The Award is named after the senior researcher and Project manager, who during his professional life developed a work focused on applied and useful aspects of Educational Technology and Innovation. The award reflects the personality of the researcher, and it acknowledges the practical work to take research from scientific papers to the real world. UNIR iTED is determined to perpetuate these values.