On Monday 18 July, UPF, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona Global and FemCat presented the Barcelona Engineering and Economic Studies bachelor’s degree, a new, innovative interuniversity degree of excellence that will be launched in the 2017-18 academic year, with the involvement of and funding from the business sector.

The rector of UPF, Jaume Casals; the rector of the UPC, Enric Fossas; the president of Barcelona Global, Gonzalo Rodés, and the president of FemCat, Ramon Carbonell, explained that this is a new interuniversity bachelor’s degree course will be co-led by UPF and the UPC and will incorporate curricular contents of engineering combined with training in economics. The event enjoyed the presence of Barcelona City Council’s councillor for Business, Culture and Innovation, Jaume Collboni.

Jaume Casals commented that the proposal “fuses a strong activity of the Polytechnic University with one of the most prodigious and renowned academic units of UPF; Economics and Business”. And he reaffirmed that “the idea is irrefutable and firm, and enjoys the support of the civil society”.

Goals of the new bachelor’s degree:

• To train engineers through cross-cutting training and skills that will allow them to face the challenges of a continuously transforming society.
• To increase the country’s competitiveness by incorporating professionals into companies whose training includes the fields of industrial engineering and economics.
• To train professionals aspiring to lead companies and people who are environmentally responsible.
• To attract international talent.
• To involve companies in the design and implementation of the degree.
• To associate the Barcelona brand with international training of excellence.

Features of the degree:

• The degree is taught entirely in English.
• Quality professional internships with emphasis on the international dimension and utmost joint responsibility of business and academia.
• Part of the curriculum is carried out outside of Catalonia.
• A 4-year bachelor’s degree consisting of 240 ECTS credits and direct access to the master’s degree in Industrial Engineering taught at the UPC.
• International student recruitment programme.
• Public sector rates for registration and an ad hoc scholarship system, guaranteeing equal opportunities.

The new studies, still awaiting approval by the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia, to be implemented in the 2017-2018 academic year, will be funded by a private foundation through the contributions of a selection of companies. These contributions will allow the price of registration to be equivalent to the ordinary cost of studies at a public university. However, and in order to guarantee equal opportunities, a scholarship scheme that will cover study costs either in full or in part is also planned.
 
The foundation will be linked to the bachelor’s degree through a collaboration agreement that will establish the attributes, the requirements and the results to be achieved by the new studies. Among other goals, the foundation will also identify and transfer the skills that the productive fabric would like for these new engineering professionals to possess.
 
For their part, the companies will make monetary contributions to the foundation and, should they wish to, they may form part of the board, which will define the strategy, as well as the financing and the creation of an endowment scheme, which should constitute the main source of funding of this project in the future. Also, they will have preferential access to the recruitment of talent both via the students’ curricular internships and through the job placement of graduates. The first group of graduates will join the labour market in the 2020-21 academic year.
 
Once all of the courses of these studies are up and running – scheduled for the 2022-23 academic year-, the contribution by the foundation to the project will be of about 1.2 million euros per year.
 
The degree, the syllabus of which the two universities are working on, will shortly be submitted to the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia for inclusion, as appropriate, in the academic programme.

Origin of the initiative

The new UPC-UPF degree came about as a result of the Barcelona Global Challenge in higher education, three working sessions organized in 2015 by Barcelona Global with the participation of more than 60 professionals, companies and academics to discuss the suitability of promoting in Barcelona the creation of a degree of excellence with an international character and a major involvement of business.