[OpenInn] University and Competitiveness

Mr. Matti Pursula, Rector, Helsinki University of Technology

He begins talking about, of course, about Nokia. He continues showing us their campus, next to Nokia building and other companies and now figures and figures and figures. A lot of meaningless excel tables (at least for me).

The main difference with Finnish university is that all of them are financed by themselves (even the public ones). Maybe they work because of that. Noew they’re merging the 3 existing universities in a single one. Exactly as us: 3 universities in Valencia (UV, UPV and UCV) and we (they) have to create a new one :-(

Finally, a good speech talking about collaboration between university and

Dr. Hu Haiyan, President, Beijing Institute of Technology

An interesting viewpoint from China. Questioning what a university should be and how to retain the high quality of an university: large scale, huge number of disciplines, bigger, older? I guess that none of the previous. THe reforms a measures taken in the BIT are

1. to improve technological creativity
2. to cultivate modern intellectuals
3. to promote innovation in university system

Still waiting for openness.

Dr. André Oosterlinck, Honorary Rector and Chairman of the Catholic University of Leuven

Some figures: with the same number of students (33.000), 10 times more staff and twice the number of teachers and researchers. It was founded on 1425, so they have a lot to teach us. For example, all the research is done inside departments (as we did) instead of separated institutes, as we’re trying to do currently. Please, I need that some inportant in my university pay attention to that man.

How university and companies get in contact? Leuven Research & Development as intermediates, in charge of contracts, intellectual property, creation and supporting of spin-offs and finance, HR and administration. That means that researchers can research and forget about paperwork.

The factors for their success are

• a critical mass of high quality research
• legal context fro exploitation of academic research
• integrated approach in research valorisation: multidisciplinary teams and high value services
• clear incentives systems and policies to encourage research groups and to seek knowledge transfer opportunities

Well, he’s finishing and not even a word about openness.

«Strong and creative universities promote and support excellence in teaching, learning, research innovation and support of the community»

Dr. Juan Juliá Igual, Rector, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

En España vamos mejorando: 40% deacceso a la educación superior, aumento de la producción científica (3% del JCR), hace falta más gasto en ed. superior e I+D+I (1’2% del PIB, frente al 4% de los países escandinavos o incluso el 3% de Europa). Baja producción de patentes (1%), es decir, que no se aplica la investigación. Eso quiere decir una baja capacidad innovadora (0’24 en España, frente a una 0,73 en Finlandia). Hay pocos emprendedores (el 70% nunca ha pensado en crear una empresa) y poca relación universidad-empresa (el 53% de las empresas no tienen lazos con las universidades). Vamos, que está todo bastante negro.

El resto de la charla va sobre el Instituto IDEAS. Como es algo que ya me sé, os dejo en elnace y le echáis vosotros un vistazo.

La palabra mágica estos dos días es spin-off. Es una idea interesate, pero hoy es imposible que haya spin-offs asociadas a la universidad: deben ser entidades independientes y no se puede ser profesor y participar en una de ellas. Hasta que no cambie eso, hay poco que hacer. Las universidades pueden autofinanciarse, pero tienen que dejarlas.