The Principal of the Universitat de València, Esteban Morcillo, has appreciated the reduction in the university fees and the improvement in the grants policy. Nevertheless, he has recalled the low investment in the higher education, which places Spain in the last positions of Europe. The Principal has given the speech in the Solemn Opening Ceremony of the Academic Year 2017-2018 that was celebrated on Friday at the Paranymph of La Nau. Classes start on Monday.
The Principal Esteban Morcillo, the Councillor for Treasury and Economic Model, Vicent Soler and the General Secretary for Science and Innovation of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Juan María Vázquez Rojas, among other representatives from the academic and social world, will take part in the ceremony.
The Principal has affirmed: ‘In this ceremony, I want to thank the Valencian Department of Education, Research, Culture and Sport for having started a progressive policy of reduction of the university fees after having listened the demand of the university community that was expressed by the senate of the Universitat de València’. He has added: ‘Apart from the appropriate policy carried by the Valencian Department to progressively reduce the university fees, we should also recognise the effort made by workers of the Education Department to create a new grants policy and to strengthen the public university system’.
However, Esteban Morcillo has said that it is not possible to speak about the fees and grants policies without mentioning the funding of the public university system. ‘Once again, we must express what the governing bodies of the university have already demanded: the need to recover the funding prior to the current crisis’. ‘The claim for a decent funding of the public universities is made from responsibility and solidarity, since the Valencian public universities have supported the Valencian Government to claim for a new funding model for our territory that has been unfairly considered’.
The Principal’s speech can be consulted by .clicking here.
The Councillor Vicent Soler has spoken about the management of the Valencian Government of the last years in the field of the higher education. In this way, he has mentioned how the historic debt of universities has been reduced, the measures to guarantee the stabilization and promotion of PDI and the start of the PAS special recognition.
According to Soler, the fees and grants policy is a priority for the Department in order to guarantee the fair access to university.
The speech of Vicent Soler can be consulted by clicking here.
The full university professor Santiago Mas Coma, from the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology and Parasitology of the Universitat de València, has given the Master Lecture entitled ‘Infectious diseases, the history of humanity and the current climate and global changes’. He has spoken about the main diseases of this type and the emerging ones. ‘The emerging infectious diseases have caused the loss of many trillion dollars in the last 20 years and the costs do not stop’.
Mas Coma has reflected on the effects of the climate change and has remembered the big migratory movements and human exchanges in history (Silk Road, colonization of America, extension of the Roman Empire...) to explain the propagation of several diseases.
The Lecture can be consulted clicking here.
The general secretary of the UV, María José Añón, will read a summary of the Report of the academic year 2016-2017. According to this report, last year there were 57,036 enrolled students (38, 2% men and 61, 8% women). 39,891 people studied undergraduate studies, 5,775 studied master’s degree and 4,463 studied doctoral programmes. Furthermore, 6,855 people studied University postgraduate qualifications. The general secretary has highlighted that last year it was the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus programme, the Universitat de València maintained ‘a decisive leadership’. There were 2,029 Erasmus students from other universities and 1,492 Erasmus students from our university.
According to the Report, the teaching and research staff consists of 4,326 people (42% women and 57% men). Regarding the administrative and service staff, there are 1,642 people (71, 79% are women and 28, 21% are men).
The Report can be read by clicking here.
On the other hand, Amat Sánchez, has read a statement on behalf of the Plataforma en Defensa de la Universidad Pública where ‘an appeal to the Valencian Government is made to work decisively to make possible the commitments that are already unresolved and to jointly achieve to strengthen the public service that the university offers in our society’.
The statement can be read by clicking here.
Last update: 9 de september de 2017 08:00.
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