Social Sciences, Teacher Training and the Research Institutes were the centres visited by Mavi Mestre's team. The offer of degrees, the University's staffing policy and the new buildings on the campus were discussed at these meetings.

After the events that took place last week in the Faculties of Economics and Law, the team of the candidate for the office of the Principal visited the Faculties of Social Sciences and Teacher Training on Wednesday 23 February, where representatives of the different university groups were present.

As usual, after thanking the entire university community for the work done during these four years, especially during the pandemic, the candidate began her speeches with a brief presentation of the fundamental approaches of her programme: cogovernance as a style of government and the basic principle of putting people at the centre, which will guide the new mandate as it has done so far.

She also listed the funding and regulatory problems pending resolution that seriously affect the activity of public universities, especially the Universitat de València, and commented on the main vectors for which the new Minister of Universities is committed, such as internationalisation, lifelong learning and the strengthening of the system of research grants and SICUE grants, among others.

She also said that the same day the first meeting of the Universities Bureau took place, with the regulation of the figure of substitute lecturers as an item on the agenda. This is a figure provided for in the collective agreement agreed years ago and which the Generalitat has not yet authorised, although the figure has gone ahead thanks to the support of the Botanic parliamentary groups, who have included it in the law accompanying the budget. This figure has a different character to that of associate lecturers, as it has to have a more academic and less professional profile, and can be a complementary and very useful instrument for quickly covering situations caused by leave of absence or leave of absence, among other situations.

Throughout the day, emphasis was also placed on the consequences of the administrative and service staff replacement rate and the problems caused by the non-extendable temporary hiring of people who do not have time to train and get used to the specificities of each service. It is a waste of resources and effort, an obstacle to the proper functioning of the services, departments and research groups and one more reason to demand a solution to the budgetary and staffing constraints of the University from the institutions. The importance of rationalising and cataloguing the administrative tasks of each unit or service and reducing the bureaucracy associated with management systems was also stressed.

Social Sciences and Teacher Training: new degrees, specific training for administrative and service staff and staff renewals

The Principal began by explaining the progress made in terms of structural staff recruitment, which, although notable, is still insufficient, especially in teaching. Despite being the faculty with the highest number of doctoral assistant lecturers in the last four years, there continues to be a very large deficit of hours in almost all areas that must be taken on by associate lecturers, at least until the figure of substitute lecturers can be applied.

In relation to infrastructures, Mavi Mestre highlighted the construction of a new lecture hall and the ideas competition for the project to humanise the Tarongers Campus. The University, said the candidate, has multiple spaces to build teaching, research and service buildings, but it needs the right funding that would allow it to address these facilities that would improve the development of our functions and, therefore, the quality of the service we offer to society.

Both centres called for the extension of the academic offer. The dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Albert Moncusí, recalled that they are working on two proposals for official master's degrees and that they are considering the proposal for a new degree. A representative of the Teacher Training Student Council Branch called for the implementation of a double degree in Preschool Education and Primary School Education. The Dean of Teacher Training, Ana Botella, remarked that the faculty is already working on a proposal.

The need to train the administrative and service staff more intensively in order to cope with the administrative transformations, especially those resulting from digitalisation, which affect them as a group, as well as to acquire specific skills in terms of customer service and knowledge of foreign languages for caretaker's office staff, was highlighted.

The administrative workload of those coordinating degree programmes was also highlighted, especially the situation of those in charge of doctoral programmes.

Tarongers Research Institutes: concern about the labour reform and more coordination and visibilisation

In the afternoon, the candidate for Principal visited the Institutes located on the Tarongers Campus, where she highlighted the splendid progress achieved in the last four years in terms of publications and attracting research project funding. She also explained the situation of staff with contracts for works and services, which is awaiting the response of the Spanish Treasury Department  to the letter sent by the CRUE requesting the immediate application of the figure of the temporary contract to all those affected, since the entire research ecosystem of the Spanish state is at stake.

A young researcher shared an important reflection on improving and modernising the administrative mechanisms for interacting with open access journals. Both the candidate and the current vice-Principal for research, Carlos Hermenegildo, agreed on the usefulness of the proposal and pointed out that there are already agreements with different journals that have had very positive results.

The Principal announced the construction of another research building to expand the activity of the research groups and to accommodate new research staff. Likewise, as in other centres and institutes, an analysis of the use of space will be carried out in order to distribute it more coherently in accordance with the evolution, the volume of work and the people involved in each group.

The need to promote connections between research institutes, between these and the departments, and to improve their visibility to the outside world was highlighted. The Universitat de València, it was pointed out, has all the branches of knowledge and this generates a great multidisciplinary potential that must be exploited.

In this sense, the candidate highlighted the value of the recently created OCT platform, where the institutes can provide companies with updated information on their research and collaborations can be articulated. Finally, the candidate proposed to continue holding meetings with the representatives of the institutes to start working on their requests.