UVic-UCC will be offering three new bachelor's degree programmes in Dentistry, General Audiology and Digital Company Management in the 2023-2024 academic year

The University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC) is working to launch three new bachelor's degrees in the 2023-2024 academic year: Dentistry, General Audiology and Digital Company Management. The bachelor's degree in Dentistry and the bachelor's degree in General Audiology (a pioneer in Spain, which is awaiting verification) will be taught by the Faculty of Medicine, while the bachelor's degree in Digital Company Management, the first of its kind to be offered in Spain, will be taught at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Manresa. These three study programmes will be in addition to the 38 bachelor's degrees which the university currently offers, making a total of 41 qualifications, with 3,155 places available for next year's first-year students. The new courses for next year, which will be presented at the Saló de l'Ensenyament education fair from 15 to 19 March, also include a new advanced level specific vocational training course in Health Documentation and Administration, which will be taught at the Manlleu centre.

As for the University's facilities, the next academic year will begin with the opening of the new spaces in the Granollers centre on the Vic campus and the refurbishment of part of the Can Baumann building in Vic, which houses the Faculty of Medicine, the BETA Technology Center and the Institute for Research and Innovation in Life Sciences and Health in Central Catalonia (IRIS-CC). The construction of a new sports track for use in teaching and research is also in the pipeline, and the second phase of works on the building in the Vic sports area for the bachelor's degree in Physical Education and Sports Sciences will begin. The university's new Vic Sud building is also scheduled to open next year. UVic-UCC currently has 284 spaces, of which 108 are teaching classrooms, 19 are hybrid classrooms, 8 are computer classrooms, 67 are laboratories and 82 are coworking spaces.

There will be 150 more places available on UVic-UCC courses in the next academic year, of which 125 will be in the Faculty of Medicine (5 on the bachelor's degree in Medicine, 60 on the bachelor's degree in Dentistry and 60 on the bachelor's degree in General Audiology). Of the remainder, 15 will be in the Faculty of Business and Communication Studies (10 on the bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Management, and 5 in Marketing and Business Communication) and 10 at the BAU affiliated centre. This increase is in addition to the increase in places in recent academic years on bachelor's degree courses including Nursing and Physiotherapy, which will be consolidated next year.  There will be 100 more places on master's degree courses compared to last year: 30 on the university master's degree in Food and Sustainability, 30 on Application of Accessible Artistic Practices, and 40 places on the new master's degree in Integrated Business Management at ESERP.

Student services and demand for employment

The new range of courses at UVic-UCC for the 2023-2024 academic year is focused on "consolidating, completing the roll-out and increasing the number of places on existing bachelor's degree programmes, while simultaneously moving forward in the most strategic knowledge areas", says Àngels Pinyana, the vice-rector of Academic Organisation at UVic-UCC. The creation of new study programmes in health, social sciences and business are the result of a "permanent adjustment of our range of courses to meet society's new emerging needs," according to the vice-rector. This ability to respond to the current demands of the labour market is apparent in the students' high levels of employment, as evidenced by the fact that nearly 100% of UVic-UCC graduates are working six months after completing their studies.

One of the distinctive features of UVic-UCC is its broad-based commitment to continuing to provide easily accessible student services. The Student Support Programme (PSE) has been expanded and restructured for the coming academic year. It will be personalised and focus on overcoming any difficulties related to learning, psychological or functional diversity that students may have, among other issues. This support is provided as a result of the commitment to being an inclusive and welcoming university.

Three new bachelor's degrees for the next academic year

The Faculty of Medicine is working to offer two new bachelor's degrees in the 2023-2024 academic year. First, there is the bachelor's degree in Dentistry, which aims to train expert professionals in oral health, given the demand for healthcare in this field that is anticipated to increase in the coming years. The new degree will be taught face-to-face, and will last for five academic years: the first three will be taught on the Vic Campus (at Can Baumann), and the last two on the Manresa Campus (at the University Clinic in Manresa). There will initially be 60 places, and a total of 300 credits must be taken on the course. Internships will be a very important part of the course plan: students will work with real patients for a total of around 1,100 hours - a figure much higher than at other universities that teach the same bachelor's degree course. They will take place at various health centres: mainly at the University Clinic in Manresa, as well as at the new dental and maxillofacial surgery clinic at the Santa Creu de Vic University Hospital, at primary healthcare centres in central Catalonia, at dental clinics with specialised units, and at other partner health centres that have dental services.

The Faculty of Medicine also has everything in place to begin the new bachelor's degree in General Audiology, which is currently awaiting verification from the University Quality Agency (AQU). This new degree, which is a pioneer in its field in Spain, aims to meet the current need for professionals specialising in audiology, due to the increasing importance of auditory health in society. It will be a mixed bachelor's degree course (clinical and technological) that will be taught in a blended learning format at UVic-UCC's Vic Campus. The degree will last for four academic years, and 60 places will initially be available. The curricular internships will take place in audioprosthetic consultancies, health centres and hospital, companies and in education. They will take place in the second semester of the third year and the first semester of the fourth year.

The bachelor's degree in Digital Company Management taught by the Faculty of Social Sciences in Manresa is designed to train professionals able to lead projects for digital transformation in companies, institutions and organisations in the third sector. It contains content designed to provide its graduates with a highly robust foundation of technological knowledge, data analysis and leadership of multidisciplinary teams, which is rounded off with a humanistic perspective. The training will take place in a blended format over four academic years, and there will initially be 40 places available. The course contains a total of 240 credits, and the methodology used will be active and innovative, based on case studies, challenges and project-based learning, interdisciplinary seminars and simulation for skills training.

An advanced vocational training cycle in Health Administration and soft skills

One of the major new courses on the UVic-UCC Professional Campus will be the advanced level specific vocational training course in Health Documentation and Administration, which will be taught at the Teknós Manlleu centre, and which is in the approval phase. This training cycle, which is not currently available at any centre in Central Catalonia, will continue auxiliary nursing staff, administrative management staff and higher secondary education courses, among others, and enable those students to obtain a higher technical diploma. 

Another new addition will be the inclusion of workshops and seminars in the cycles taught at Vic, Granollers and Manlleu, to contribute to improving the students' soft skills. These skills, which the students are already working on, will be enhanced throughout the year in order to prepare the future graduates to join the labour market. In addition to working on soft skills, the advanced vocational training cycle in Marketing and Advertising will also focus on positive psychology, to provide students with tools for improving their general well-being and fostering academic success. The 2023-2024 academic year sees the tenth anniversary of the launch of advanced level vocational training courses at UVic-UCC. The number of cycles has tripled in a decade (from 3 to 9), as has the number of students (from the initial 47 to more than 300) and the centres involved (from 2 to 5). 

The UManresa Professional Campus increases its agreements with European centres to promote the mobility of its advanced vocational training students within the framework of the Erasmus programme. Advanced vocational training cycle students studying Administration and Finance, International Trade, Early Childhood Education and Dental Prosthetics will have various opportunities for stays in different European countries, for both training and professional internships. The UManresa professional campus will also be launching a range of courses for specialisation in digitisation and the use of ICT in designing fixed and removable dental parts for students who have passed the advanced vocational training cycle in Dental Prosthetics.

New series of grants for bachelor's degree students

Starting in the coming academic year, bachelor's degree students at the Vic, Manresa and Medicine campuses will be eligible for the new series of grants which has been established for the first time this year, which have a total budget of one million Euros. These grants are in addition to those already offered by the university. There is a wide range of grants for bachelor's degrees, master's degree and postgraduate courses, as well as predoctoral grants.

In the 2021-2022 academic year, UVic-UCC's federated centres awarded a total of 6,504,320 Euros in grants, of which 56% came from the Spanish Ministry of Education; 15% came from other external funds, and 29% from the University's own funds. These programmes benefited 2,419 students. This figure means that at a university that had 7,267 bachelor's degree students last year, one out of every three people registered receives a grant to helps them pay for their studies or meet the costs arising from them. 

More facilities in Granollers and Vic

The new facility at the UGranollers centre will open before the summer. It is a building with an area of 1,200 m2, where the entire practical side of UVic's bachelor's degree in Automotive Engineering will be located. This building will house four large laboratories equipped with the machinery and installations needed to teach the bachelor's degree course. It will also have a coworking space where students can work, a classroom, a meeting room and an outdoor space with a practice track that will reinforce its image as a campus. This new facility will be a complement to the current Can Muntanyola building, where all the classrooms will be located. We are currently in the final stage of the works to enable the consolidation and growth of the UGranollers centre.

Construction work on new spaces in the Can Baumann building in Vic began at the end of February, for spaces for the bachelor's degree in Medicine and the new bachelor's degrees in Dentistry and General Audiology in the Faculty of Medicine. The project will take place in an area of 1,500 m2, which will include five flexible classrooms, of which some will have partitions, two Dentistry laboratories, a pre-clinical laboratory, and a digitisation and technology laboratory, as well as various types of coworking areas for students. These facilities will be operational next September.

There will also be new developments at the Vic sports facilities next year, as the existing infrastructure will be consolidated with new spaces in the building that is currently used for the bachelor's degree in Physical Education and Sport Sciences (CAFE), with multi-purpose areas, gym and UCoworking workspaces for students. A new track will also be laid, which will be used for teaching and research.

These new facilities are part of the university's strategy of constant investment in installations to modernise them and to meet new teaching requirements. UVic-UCC currently has a total of 284 spaces, of which 108 are teaching classrooms, 19 are hybrid classrooms, 8 are computer classrooms, 67 are laboratories and 82 are coworking spaces. The average annual investment in all the UVic-UCC facilities is 500.000 euros, which is basically invested in regulatory compliance, sustainability and efficiency, improvements to infrastructure and facilities, and improvements to teaching spaces.  

A new Postgraduate School at UVic and new postgraduate courses at UManresa

The UVic-UCC range of university master's degrees will be expanded next year with a new degree: the master's degree in Integrated Business Management, which will be taught at the ESERP affiliated centre. This course is aimed at people wishing to acquire specialised training in various areas of business, such as business in international environments, marketing and human resources. The course will initially have 40 places, will be face-to-face and will consist of 60 credits.

UVic-UCC's range of lifelong learning courses takes another step forward following a strategic agreement in the Business sphere between the Vic and Manresa campuses, which have joined forces to offer a combined series of programmes in the 2023-2024 academic year, including a Master's degree in Accounting, Financial and Tax Management, a postgraduate course in People Management in Organisations, a postgraduate course in Scientific Communication and a master's degree in Sports Management and Marketing. This agreement paves the way for a reinforcement of the entire range of the lifelong learning courses at UVic-UCC.

On the Vic campus, the entire range is offered through the new Postgraduate School which was launched in the 2022-2023 academic year. One of this new centre's objectives is to create its own programme in the knowledge areas in which the University is strongest: health, education, business and communication, as well as biosciences and technology. The courses offered include consolidated programmes such as the Executive master's degree in Business Administration and Management (EMBA) to prepare professionals with an overall perspective of business, taught in a hybrid format and with sessions in Vic and Manresa; the new master's degree in Digital Marketing and E-Commerce, also in hybrid format and shared between Vic and Manresa; and a new edition of the university master's degrees in Food and Sustainability and in Montessori Pedagogy from 0 to 6 years, which begins every 2 years.

Two short-term programmes have so far been designed for the new UVic centre in Manlleu: Soft skills for the digital environment and Creating start-ups and intrapreneurship. To mark the opening of the centre, it will launch a series of "capsule" programmes that will act as a pilot test to expand the range of 100% asynchronous online training.

The UManresa Graduate School is launching three new programmes linked to the Health Sciences. These are the Postgraduate course in Community Physiotherapy, which will be taught with the Vic campus; the Postgraduate course in Paediatric Eating Disorders, with the EPAP institute (Portugal); and the Postgraduate course in Community Mental Health, in partnership with the UVic-UCC Mental Health Chair. In the field of Education, the Postgraduate course in Emotional Education: school, family and society, focusing on people and their emotional well-being, which is recognised by the Ministry of Education of the Government of Catalonia, will be available for the first time.

Elisava will continue to reinforce its lifelong learning programme with master's degree and postgraduate courses, including the second edition of the Master's degree in Beyond Branding in partnership with Folch Studio, and the new master's degrees in the area of Artificial Intelligence: the Master's degree in Design for Responsible Artificial Intelligence and the Master's degree in Human Interaction and Artificial Intelligence, which will both be taught in English. Finally, the executive area is being consolidated with the Master's degree in Strategic Design in Complexity, a programme organised in collaboration with the Danish university Kaos Pilot.