The Barcelona International Summer School (BISS) has become established as the summer offer for UPF undergraduate students and also for students from around the world. Previous years’ summer schools had attracted a good number of students from all parts who filled classrooms across the Ciutadella campus during the month of July. This year, however, the courses will be held for two weeks, from 13 to 24 July, online.

A total of 114 students have enrolled for courses that deal with current issues and enable enriching their curriculum with cross-disciplinary topics and highly applied approaches. The range of subjects laid on by the 2020 BISS reflects on issues such as the impact of health inequalities, time and existence, law and memory, justice and social responsibility, ethical issues in entrepreneurship, social network analysis, human rights, the challenges of sport, and transmedia storytelling, among others.

A total of 114 students from 15 different countries will be taking part this year. As a novelty, a “BISS Virtual Cafeteria” has been set up where participants can exchange impressions, participate in forums and meet each other via videoconference, beyond interaction in class.

The BISS still presents a great opportunity for the internationalization of UPF and will bring together students from 15 different countries: Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Moldova, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. International students will share the experience with UPF students from all faculties, who have responded enthusiastically to the BISS, whose participation will exceed that of previous years. For all of them, the summer school is sure to provide quality education that will help them earn early credits in the summer in a new environment.

On 9 July, a virtual session was organized targeting all participants. Isabel Valverde, vice-rector for internationalization projects, welcomed the students accompanied by the teachers and the BISS team. During the session, the students were able to familiarize themselves with technological resources to study the subjects and discovered the “BISS Virtual Cafeteria”, created by La Factoria, where they can exchange impressions, participate in forums and meet each other via videoconference, beyond interaction in class.