The 25 centers of excellence Severo Ochoa and the 16 Units of Excellence María de Maeztu, reference in leading research of the country, have met in Madrid for the first time in the Ministry of Economy before the Secretary of State of R & D Carmen Vela to demand from the government a change in the economic management of the research activities.

At the meeting, Somma Alliance presented the report  “Actions to safeguard Competitiveness in Science. The report calls for actions to elimanate bureaucatric obstacles that hinder the competitiveness of reseach centers and in many cases endanger their sustainability in the medium term. Among these requests are the consideration of science as an economyc activity of general interest in order tha research centers can reimburse VAT, a cleared regulation that does not depend of the decisions of the inspectors who evaluates the expeditures, flesibility in hiring researches and a change in the law of public contracts that requires  to open a public procurement process for purchases over 15,000€.

Source:

El País

Telecinco

Diario de Galicia

 

 

The Department of Economics enters again in the Top 50 of ranking QS  in the subject “Economics and Econometrics”.

The ranking QS analyzes four indicators: reputation, the academic institution’s reputation among academics, the reputation among employers, the number of citations and the so-called h index, which measures the quality of researchers according to the number of citations their articles have received. This classification, therefore, prioritizes the research of the universities.

Together with Economy, another 22 Spanish faculties – belonging to 12 Universities – join, reaching the top 50 in their respective areas. The Department of Library Science and Documentation of UC3M has also managed to sneak into position 38 in its specialty.

Source: El Mundo, El País, La Vanguardia