The twenty-ninth year of the University of Almería has officially started this Thursday with the solemn opening ceremony of the 2022/2023 academic year held in the Paraninfo. The person in charge of the inaugural lesson was the teacher Tesiphon Parron with ‘A walk through Medicine: from Olympus to Harvard’.
After thanking the work of all the staff that is part of the UAL, as well as the students, and remembering those who left us this year, (professors Francisco Sánchez Martos, César de Vicente Hernando and Manuel López Muñoz, and the student Juan Castro Trujillos, tragically deceased victim of violence) the Rector of the University of Almería, Carmelo Rodríguez, has been addressed to new students. “You will have the opportunity to design your personal and vital project, and you will have all the necessary tools to achieve your professional dreams. In addition, you will be trained to be key players in the future of our society”.
As the rector has commented, This course is “historic” due to the implementation of the Medicine degree. “Each new course is special, a time of hope, an opportunity in which we all renew our university vocation. But this year is one of those that will be marked forever in our collective memory. We are starting an unforgettable academic year in which we fulfilled a historic dream”. He has assured that the introduction of the degree in Medicine represents a qualitative leap in the province given the need for more health professionals and an important lever for its economic and socio-health development. “In addition to consolidating our branch of Health Sciences, the launch of these studies at our university will allow us to retain talent in our land, further improve our national and international projection to attract researchers and students who in the future be reference doctors, and promote Almeria’s health by increasing the dose of loyalty of professionals for the province, from which all citizens will greatly benefit”.
Lastly, he recalled that it is the hard work of years of necessary coordination and collaboration between people from different institutions that has culminated in studies that start “with an avant-garde approach, with an excellent curriculum similar to that of some of the most prestigious universities in the world. With state-of-the-art resources, with the most cutting-edge technology and means in our country, and with modern facilities completely adapted to the needs of one of the most demanding degrees in any higher education center”.
The rector recalled that this year they have also started “the Double Degree in Economics and Mathematics —for whose graduates we expect an excellent job placement rate— and the DDouble Degree in History and Humanities, in demand for years. In addition, there are novelties in postgraduate training with the launch of the Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology and important updates in other degrees in which the alliance with other campuses is strengthened, with a total of 14 degrees that, among the 49 that we offer, they do it with this interuniversity modality”.
Carmelo Rodríguez has assured that they will not limit both the number of students, academic offer, infrastructure, services and benefits, as well as in terms of internationalization. In particular, in areas such as sustainable agronomy, green biotechnology or the environment. “We have been setting the pace at an international level for years, and today we are a role model for universities around the world. To such an extent that the first European University with a link in these specialties, UNIgreen, today is a reality that it is led by the UAL in alliance with seven other European institutions of higher education, also referents in these fields of knowledge. This is, without a doubt, another of the great achievements that we enthusiastically celebrate at the start of the academic year”. UNIgreen will mean an improvement in terms of the versatility of the study programs -with more international degrees- the dimension and scope of the research projects, the transfer of knowledge or the mobility options for students, teachers, researchers and administration staff and services.
Great strides are also being made in terms of internationalization “projecting ourselves as a reliable and strategic partner in an increasingly globalized and dynamic scenario, as shown by the incessant increase in the number of active mobility agreements, with more than 500 institutions from more than 60 countries of the five continents.
In addition, the rector has mentioned the need scontinue improving the rate of labor insertion of the student body“although we can proudly say that we currently have the highest in the entire autonomous community.” With actions such as Dual Training, a clear example of involvement with the professional success of students. He also referred to the importance of transfer knowledge to society through scientific dissemination and the large investment made for the construction of the Natural History Pavilion, the first of its kind in the province, which is in its final phase.
To conclude, he mentioned a demand made years ago by have an emblematic building in the heart of the city. And he has pointed out as the main challenge of public universities: “The consolidation, following its review, of a financing model, as well as being able to count on sufficient resources and a stable and agreed instrument for its articulation”. At this point he has addressed the Universities counselor: “No one better than you to seek and implement solutions according to the real needs we have. Solutions that above all provide us with economic certainty, taking into account the specific needs of each of the Andalusian public universities, so that we can really fulfill our role as engines of socio-economic progress in our provinces in particular, and, therefore, of our autonomous community in general”.
The counselor announces a new Law on Universities
For your part the Minister of Universities, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, has congratulated the UAL for the implementation of the Medicine degree and for the UNIgreen campus. “In Spain right now there are 10 European campuses coordinated by Spanish universities, and five of them are in Andalusia, which shows the internationalization capacity of our university system.”
Lastly, he referred to the change in the university financing model. “We are going to make a new financing model together and also a teaching decree so that we do not have to wait more than a decade to introduce new degrees, but rather that there are criteria of flexibility, territoriality and non-competition between the universities to time to start them. This will allow all our universities to grow in a coherent way. The university strategy for Andalusia, the first time that a strategy of this type has been carried out, will serve to see which University Andalusia needs. We are going to go hand in hand with our universities to generate the economic and social development that is so demanded of us and that is already being carried out, largely thanks to the universities”.
Gómez Villamandos has advanced that “the new Andalusian Law of Universities, which was pending pending the approval of the state regulations, will see the light in this legislature”. He explained that the main objective of this law will be to resolve, in the field of regional competences, the uncertainties generated by the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU) so that Andalusian universities can fully exploit their potential.
In addition, the counselor has highlighted that with this reform “we will improve social councils, we will facilitate patronage in research and academic careers”. “This law will be born as a result of dialogue and the consensus of all the agents involved, always with respect and seeking shared solutions”, he stressed. “We need a law of maximums that responds to the demands that universities have been raising for a long time and prepares them for the challenges of the present and future”, he stressed.
The head of the University has admitted that “the possibility that the autonomous agencies can evaluate in the accreditation process for positions of State officials raises serious doubts regarding the maintenance of criteria with the necessary homogeneity or respect for the principle of equality and might lead to the rupture of the national university bodies, contributing to the disintegration of the university system”.
On the other hand, he referred to the link between the UAL and the business sector. In this sense, he has highlighted that 100% of his students carry out curricular internships in companies or institutions, thus bringing them closer to the reality of the world of work”.
During his speech, Gómez Villamandos also highlighted the work carried out by the current rector, Carmelo Rodríguez, at the head of the UAL, “not only for promoting historical demands, such as the introduction of Medicine, but for making it an Institution that combines its intellectual wealth with entrepreneurship and the natural wealth that characterizes the province”.
Likewise, the head of University, Research and Innovation has emphasized the effort of the University of Almería to promote internationalization, as evidenced by the mobility of students in the Erasmus program and its wide offer to other non-EU countries and also being a center of destination for international students.
Finally, Gómez Villamandos congratulated the UAL “for its commitment to research, in which the Calar Alto astronomical observatory plays a key role as it is the basis for numerous scientific investigations; and for its ability to transfer knowledge to the business world”.
