“Research should be at the heart of an independent Catalonia”

Gemma Geis (Girona, 1979) is the new Sec­re­tary for Re­search and Uni­ver­si­ties, hav­ing her­self been in­volved in re­search for years and vice-prin­ci­pal of a uni­ver­sity. Such ex­pe­ri­ence has not al­ways been suf­fi­ciently val­ued in po­lit­i­cal ap­point­ments.

After the first hun­dred days of gov­ern­ment, you must now have a good idea of the state of the Cata­lan uni­ver­sity sys­tem. What’s your di­ag­no­sis?

Dur­ing these hun­dred days, our at­ti­tude has been to lis­ten very closely, to cre­ate this al­liance of coun­try that is needed in the field of tal­ent, in­no­va­tion, re­search and knowl­edge trans­fer, so that all of this is at the heart of it. To be hon­est, I wasn’t too sur­prised by what I found. I’ve pretty much con­firmed the idea I al­ready had, and that will allow us to move for­ward with im­ple­men­ta­tion of the poli­cies that need to be pro­moted.

What will those poli­cies be?

There are two basic is­sues. How to en­sure that all the knowl­edge that ex­ists in the coun­try in the field of re­search, which is a lot, un­der­goes a gen­er­a­tional han­dover. This is di­rectly re­lated to an­other issue, which is at­tract­ing tal­ent, re­tain­ing tal­ent and re­cov­er­ing tal­ent that has left. This is all re­lated. If we pur­sue gen­er­a­tional poli­cies, we are au­to­mat­i­cally in a bet­ter po­si­tion to re­tain and at­tract tal­ent. And there’s also a third issue, which is the need to im­prove in­fra­struc­ture, both sci­en­tific and in gen­eral.

Are there enough fi­nan­cial re­sources to do this? And are re­sources enough?

In the coun­try that some of us see, what we need is in­de­pen­dence. With all the tools of an in­de­pen­dent state, the coun­try could make an im­pres­sive leap in terms of the knowl­edge so­ci­ety.

What tools don’t we have?

More fund­ing is needed. And we must also de­nounce re­cen­tral­i­sa­tion poli­cies, both in the sci­en­tific field and in ref­er­ence to Next Gen­er­a­tion funds, which is based on every­one get­ting the same. When Cata­lan uni­ver­si­ties com­pete on equal terms in Eu­rope, they are the ones that get the most Eu­ro­pean funds, whereas some­times in Spain they do not. There is not only a lack of fund­ing but of bet­ter fund­ing of pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties and re­search cen­tres. Be­cause re­turns from pub­lic fund­ing for re­search far ex­ceed the money spent. It’s not an ex­pense, it’s an in­vest­ment. We have seen this with the pan­demic. Re­search that is trans­ferred to so­ci­ety, in health, in en­ergy tran­si­tion, in the fight against cli­mate change, all of this is the re­sult of a nec­es­sary pub­lic in­vest­ment.

You have talked about the flight of tal­ent or brain drain. Is it nec­es­sar­ily bad to ex­port tal­ent, or is the prob­lem not com­pen­sat­ing by at­tract­ing out­side tal­ent here? Be­cause the tal­ent that comes back has broad­ened their hori­zons learn­ing abroad and at some point comes back with all the ac­cu­mu­lated bag­gage, which is pos­i­tive, right?

The world of Cata­lan re­search is fully in­ter­na­tion­alised. Re­searchers do re­search abroad, have in­ter­na­tional re­la­tion­ships that en­hance their de­vel­op­ment as re­searchers. The prob­lem is that these peo­ple are some­times forced to leave, be­cause they have no al­ter­na­tives here, be­cause of the work­ing con­di­tions. This can­not be viewed as in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion, but a flight of tal­ent. We must en­sure that peo­ple who want to carry out re­search work in this coun­try are able to do so. And those peo­ple who want to leave for a while and come back, of course, they have to be able to do that.

Is Cat­alo­nia an at­trac­tive coun­try for sci­en­tific and uni­ver­sity tal­ent?

I think so, what’s hap­pen­ing is that the EU coun­tries and world’s lead­ing coun­tries in gen­eral are in­vest­ing a lot in re­search and in­no­va­tion. And so we not only have to in­vest in it, we have to shorten the gap as much as pos­si­ble to keep up. We can’t lose mo­men­tum. What is re­quired is a de­ci­sion tai­lored to the needs of Cat­alo­nia to in­vest as much as pos­si­ble in these poli­cies. The coun­try’s in­fra­struc­ture needs to be top notch.

Is pub­lic fund­ing enough? Should all fund­ing be pub­lic?

We need to work on the issue of pa­tron­age. With­out com­pli­cat­ing mat­ters, pub­lic fund­ing must be pos­si­ble, be­cause the coun­try be­lieves in re­search, but in ad­di­tion, and with the pan­demic we have also seen works funded by pub­lic-pri­vate col­lab­o­ra­tion. Al­though that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be ac­count­abil­ity and lim­its.

Why is there such re­jec­tion of pri­vate in­vest­ment in some sec­tors, when it works smoothly in the ad­vanced in­ter­na­tional arena?

I don’t know. I don’t see it as a bad thing pro­vided the con­cept of pub­lic ser­vice is main­tained, guar­an­tee­ing fun­da­men­tal rights.

Can pri­vate pa­tron­age con­di­tion what re­search is done, fo­cus­ing it on busi­ness in­ter­ests?

Com­pa­nies have seen that in­vest­ing in re­search leads to faster so­lu­tions.

But basic re­search is not the same as ap­plied re­search.

I be­lieve that every­one – in­clud­ing com­pa­nies – knows there is a need for basic re­search. Be­cause with­out being good at basic re­search it is very dif­fi­cult to be strong at ap­plied re­search. All types of pa­tron­age should be pos­si­ble and we will work to strengthen this area.

The Cata­lan uni­ver­sity sys­tem is get­ting old. I say that be­cause in the 1990s there was a boom of new fac­ulty mem­bers and re­searchers, but now there seems to be a gen­er­a­tional block­age.

Re­place­ment quo­tas set by the Span­ish state make re­newal dif­fi­cult. And when you look at the prin­ci­pals, they com­plain about the av­er­age age of the fac­ulty.

These are the same prin­ci­pals that re­place re­tirees with pro­fes­sors on tem­po­rary con­tracts.

Well, be­cause tem­po­rary places and per­ma­nent places de­pend on quo­tas, and the Span­ish gov­ern­ment has been un­com­pro­mis­ing in this re­gard. What the prin­ci­pals would like is for re­stric­tions on re­place­ments to be re­moved, so that they can have more per­ma­nent po­si­tions. If the re­place­ment quota was elim­i­nated, the prin­ci­pals would have many more tools to en­sure bet­ter con­di­tions and gen­er­a­tional re­newal.

The re­place­ment quota is the ratio that de­ter­mines the num­ber of em­ploy­ees who can join the pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion de­pend­ing on the num­ber of peo­ple leav­ing. For those of us un­fa­mil­iar with it, can you tell us how it works?

This af­fects the en­tire civil ser­vice. In the uni­ver­sity world it means that yes, for ex­am­ple, twenty pro­fes­sors re­tire, and they only let you cre­ate two full-time po­si­tions, be­cause you can’t fill a hun­dred per­cent of civil ser­vant jobs. It’s been like this for many, many years. The re­place­ment quota has been as low as zero, or 10%. And this af­fects not only the fac­ulty, but also the uni­ver­sity ad­min­is­tra­tion and ser­vice staff, which is very im­por­tant. And this is why we end up with so many tem­po­rary em­ploy­ees.

Doesn’t this af­fect the qual­ity of uni­ver­sity ed­u­ca­tion, as well as caus­ing great job in­se­cu­rity?

It is detri­men­tal to guar­an­tee­ing the so­lid­ity of the chain of knowl­edge trans­fer, be­cause it blocks the gen­er­a­tional han­dover, and per­pet­u­ates in­terim po­si­tions. The av­er­age age at which a pro­fes­sor man­ages to get tenure is very high.

Isn’t uni­ver­sity ed­u­ca­tion too fo­cused on the job mar­ket?

Sub­jects can­not only be de­ter­mined by the mar­ket. When there is pub­lic fund­ing, it is im­por­tant that uni­ver­sity stud­ies lead to em­ploy­a­bil­ity, it’s a de­mand of so­ci­ety. But there’s also a bal­ance with sub­jects that are not as fo­cused on em­ploy­a­bil­ity, but form part of the model of de­vel­op­ing knowl­edge in the coun­try and ed­u­cat­ing cit­i­zens.

Are dou­ble de­grees that com­bine a tech­ni­cal de­gree with a hu­man­i­ties de­gree a good way of achiev­ing this?

When it comes to find­ing a job, spe­cific sub­jects aimed at the work­place are valu­able, but so is a cross-dis­ci­pli­nary ed­u­ca­tion. I think a dou­ble de­gree in eco­nom­ics and phi­los­o­phy is very in­ter­est­ing, for ex­am­ple. Or elec­tronic en­gi­neer­ing and busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tion and man­age­ment. Uni­ver­si­ties are al­ready re­think­ing Bach­e­lor’s and Mas­ter’s de­grees to adapt them to the needs of the mar­ket, but also to the gen­eral right to ac­cess knowl­edge, which I per­son­ally ap­plaud.

Should there be ac­cess to knowl­edge in Cata­lan? Or will the phrase at­trib­uted to Adolfo Suárez end up being true, that chem­istry can­not be taught in Cata­lan? You’ve al­ready talked to the Cul­ture Sec­re­tary about this, who has an­nounced a major lan­guage stan­dard­i­s­a­tion pro­gramme, right?

We’ve talked to the Ed­u­ca­tion Sec­re­tary. There is a de­mand for this from the fac­ul­ties of Ed­u­ca­tion, be­cause stu­dents often ar­rive with a very low level of Cata­lan. Cata­lan is the ve­hic­u­lar lan­guage of uni­ver­si­ties in Cat­alo­nia, and this is our man­date. We’re now work­ing with the De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion and when this more gen­eral “shock plan” is de­cided, we’ll work on it. But my com­mit­ment to the lan­guage is so strong that I haven’t waited. We’re work­ing to en­sure that stu­dents are taught in Cata­lan, to strengthen Cata­lan in re­search, to strengthen the Live Cata­lan Uni­ver­sity Net­work. And I know that the uni­ver­sity prin­ci­pals are firmly com­mit­ted to it. In­ter­na­tional re­search is com­pat­i­ble with the use of the Cata­lan lan­guage. We will, of course, col­lab­o­rate with all de­part­ments on this, but we have al­ready begun to act.

With so many changes of gov­ern­ment and re­dis­tri­b­u­tion of de­part­ments, even when the gov­ern­ing party is the same, there’s a feel­ing that it’s dif­fi­cult to con­sol­i­date poli­cies in the medium or long term.

For those of us from the aca­d­e­mic world, more than pure and sim­ple pol­i­tics, the val­ues that guide us are those of good prepa­ra­tion and ef­fi­ciency. We’re very clear about the axes we want to work on.

Are they strong enough that when some­one else ar­rives, even if they are from an­other party, they can be main­tained, or will they be changed again?

I think so. And I think we have to pre­pare the coun­try for in­de­pen­dence. It may not hap­pen, but I am com­mit­ted to it, be­cause I be­lieve that re­search, knowl­edge trans­fer and in­no­va­tion must be at the heart of an in­de­pen­dent coun­try. And that can at­tract a lot of peo­ple.

in­ter­view Gemma Geis

in­ter­view GEMMA GEIS