TRAINING FOR LEADERSHIP

Approaches to university modernisation in Europe

On 1 February 2008, the President of the Rafael del Pino Foundation, María del Pino, and the Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Knowledge and Development Foundation (CYD Foundation), Ana Patricia Botín, signed a collaboration agreement for the organisation of a series of lectures on the theme of “Approaches to university modernisation in Europe“.

With these lectures, given by senior officials and academics involved in higher education in Europe and the United States, the two foundations wish to encourage analysis of the reforms aimed at achieving better adaptation of universities to their new environment, in the firm belief that a comparative look helps to gauge the challenges, choose the best ways of addressing them and undertake new reforms.

The first speaker was Ján Figel’, the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, on 26 June 2008 whose theme was “Why is the reform of European universities necessary?“ In his lecture, Ján Figel’ said that “the production, dissemination and use of knowledge must be the central axis of economic development“, adding that “the evolution of the Spanish university system and its adaptation to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is an opportunity to be more responsive to the problems of society and the economy, and is a way to correct some weaknesses such as the low pay of Spanish graduates, which is among the lowest in the European Union, and the temporality of employment“.

Also present were the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia; the chairwoman of the CYD Foundation, Ana Patricia Botín, and the President of the Rafael del Pino Foundation, María del Pino. In her speech, Cristina Garmendia said that the production, dissemination and use of knowledge must be “the central axis of economic development“. The Minister for Science and Innovation also emphasised that both the European Commission, the Spanish Government and the privileged observers of the university system agree on “the basic principles of what universities should be in Europe and, in particular, in Spain“.