The application of the Universities Law approved in 2023 is beginning to unravel. Today the Government presented its plan to help stabilize the workforce of public campuses that are required to adapt to the new regulations, which means an increase in hiring.
Thus, the Government will finance with 150 million euros annually a total of 3,400 positions for doctoral assistant professors in public universities starting next year and during the six years of this type of contract. This investment represents two thirds of the cost of teaching positions and the autonomous communities, which are competent in this matter, will assume the remaining third.
The Executive announced this proposal during the meeting held this Friday by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, with the president of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities ( Crue), Eva Alcón, and representatives of its governing board.
"It represents the largest talent stabilization and retention plan that a government has ever presented in our country to convert Spanish public universities into centers of excellence by improving the conditions for attracting talent and thereby achieving the rejuvenation and consolidation of their workforces. "said the minister.
These extra places, which will be launched beyond the ordinary offer of public employment, must be used to compensate for changes in the teaching dedication of associate professors and new doctoral assistant professors, included in the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU). ).
The president of Crue has assessed the Government's commitment as "positive" and has described the program presented by Sánchez and Morant as "powerful".
"Crue trusts that the autonomous communities will join the announced initiative and complement the significant contribution of the central government, so that the universities can thus have the necessary resources to improve their teaching staff in application of the LOSU," he stated. . "The proposal gives universities the opportunity, by virtue of university autonomy, to plan the generational change and the stabilization of the teaching staff," concluded Alcón.
The Minister of Research and Universities, Joaquim Nadal, has made an "initially satisfactory" assessment of the Government's "commitment" to funding to apply the law. For the university councilor, "this movement allows us to move towards a negotiation of an agreement between the Department of Research and Universities, the ministry and the universities of Catalonia", and should allow us to "guarantee shared financing of the needs for teaching positions of the universities".
He recalled, however, that the LOSU is a state law that creates "new obligations along with the specific singularity of the Catalan model in the field of teaching" so the agreement between the administrations must have "several variables."
Nadal spoke thus at the end of a conference on the use of Catalan in university teaching and research, organized by the association of former rectors LAUDE at the University of Girona (UdG).
