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Background of the Program
The proposed Doctoral Programme in Regional Development is the result of the adaptation of the current Doctoral Programme in Regional Development, Training and Employment, distinguished with the Quality Mention according to the Resolution of 20 October 2008, of the Secretary of State for Universities, by which the Quality Mention is awarded to doctoral studies at Spanish universities for the academic year 2008-2009. In turn, the Regional Development, Training and Employment Programme was the result of the adaptation of the Training, Employment and Regional Development Programme, with a Quality Mention from the Ministry of Education and Science in the 2004 call, in accordance with the initial reform of postgraduate studies within the framework of European Convergence in the field of higher education, and has its genesis in the late 1990s. It was at that time when, taking advantage of practical experience in doctoral programmes, the doctoral professors of the Department of Economics of Institutions, Economic Statistics and Econometrics of the University of La Laguna considered the development of a programme that would overcome the conception that, at that time, predominated in doctoral programmes, and which resulted in many of these constituting a sum of disparate courses collected under a generic title capable of covering the different specialties of each one of them. In this way, taking into account the lines of research developed by the members of the Department, the design of a doctoral program was proposed that would respond, on the one hand, to the interest in local development present in the bodies of the Local Administration of the Canary Islands and, on the other, that would also take into consideration the proximity to the African continent and the historical relations with Central and South America. At that time, there was already extensive bibliography available about the importance of the local-global binomial and its impact on all aspects of social practice, so the opportunity was seen to generate a doctoral program that would attend to local interest and that, in addition, due to its content, would be attractive to students from other fields. The confluence between the lines of research developed by the Department of Economics of Institutions, Economic Statistics and Econometrics, local interest and the impact of the global, resulted in a first program, developed jointly with the Department of Sociology, focused on issues related to Education, Employment and Local Development. The initial collaboration of the Sociology Department gave the programme an interdisciplinary character that, for methodological reasons, has subsequently been strengthened and reinforced. The Geography Department was subsequently incorporated, and then the Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science, so that, although we no longer have the Sociology Department, both the Training, Employment and Regional Development programme and the current Regional Development, Training and Employment programme have allowed students to acquire the necessary knowledge to analyse, from different approaches, specific realities and to propose actions or policies in general for development at a subnational level.
The Doctoral Program in Training, Employment and Regional Development began to be taught in Venezuela in the period 1999-2001, under the auspices of various framework agreements signed between the University of La Laguna and various Venezuelan universities (Universidad Experimental de Guayana and Universidad de los Andes).
In 2004, this programme was submitted for applications for the Quality Mention from the Ministry of Education and Science, obtaining it for the 2005-2007 biennium. In December 2006, the audit carried out by ANECA at the University of La Laguna headquarters resulted in the renewal of this Quality Mention for this Doctoral Programme. Likewise, the current Programme in Regional Development, Training and Employment, resulting from the adaptation of the Training, Employment and Regional Development Programme, also obtained the Quality Mention according to the Resolution of 20 October 2008 of the State Secretariat for Universities.
From 2008 to 2013, a total of 18 doctoral theses have been defended in the Training, Employment and Regional Development Doctoral Programme. The number of students enrolled in the 2012/13 academic year was 55, while the average number of students enrolled in the programme in the last five years is 75.
Relationship of the proposal with the R&D&I situation of the scientific-professional sector of its thematic area.
The proposed PhD Program in Regional Development has the following two lines of research:
We understand that the two proposed lines of research are congruent and coherent with the guidelines and priorities established by the development and innovation strategies established at European, national and regional levels. Thus, for example, the National R&D&I Plan 2013-2016 and, more specifically, the State R&D&I Programme oriented towards the challenges of society, integrates several lines of funding that correspond to the objectives and lines of research of the proposed Programme.
On the other hand, the current Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013) presents several lines of research and funding, within its specific programmes, which present synergies with the Doctoral Programme in Regional Development. Thus, the Cooperation programme focuses on stimulating cooperation and strengthening links between industry and research in a transnational framework, and includes a thematic field dedicated to the Socioeconomic sciences and humanities.
On the other hand, the Capacities programme offers researchers powerful tools to strengthen the quality and competitiveness of European research, by promoting investments in research infrastructures in less prosperous regions, in the formation of regional research hubs and in research in favour of SMEs, which are an important element of research within the PhD Program in Regional Development.
And finally, the People program mobilises significant financial resources to improve the career prospects of researchers in Europe. This programme can be leveraged within the framework of the Programme to attract more quality young researchers.
Since 2010, the EU has also been working on designing a strategy to help overcome the crisis, to make the EU a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy that enjoys high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion.
In 2010, the European Commission issued the EUROPE 2020 communication, which is a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (COM(2010) 2020 final). The strategy sets out three mutually reinforcing priorities, which define the axes around which EU action strategies must be designed, which are:
The EUROPE 2020 strategy also sets out five objectives for 2020 that will set the tone for the process and will be translated into national objectives: employment, research and innovation, climate change and energy, education and the fight against poverty.
Consult the tables
To achieve these objectives, coherent, coordinated and comprehensive action is required at the different levels of governance. The European Commission has established that both regions and Member States must have a smart specialisation strategy in order to be eligible for funding. European cohesion policies for the next programming period 2014-2020. In other words, the existence of regional strategies based on smart specialisation is included as an element of ex ante conditionality that makes R&D&I funding conditional within the framework of Cohesion 2014-2020.
National and regional innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3 strategies) consist of integrated agendas for territorial economic transformation. In this sense, the attached table contains the aspects that highlight the congruence of the lines of research of the Doctoral Programme in Regional Development (Line 1: Governance, Sustainability and Territorial Development and Line 2: Transversal and Sectoral Policies, Energy and Transport) with the objectives of the RIS3 agenda:
In July 2013, the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands presented its "Smart Specialisation Strategy for the Canary Islands 2014-2020", which aims to lay the foundations for the formulation, consensus and development of a "Smart Specialisation Strategy" adapted to the reality of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands within the framework of the Europe 2020 Strategy.
By assessing the relationship between the regional strategic objectives and other EU cohesion policy planning documents for the 2014-2020 period, the analysis reveals a remarkable degree of coherence, reflected in the importance given in the region to competitiveness factors, productivity and policies aimed at increasing growth potential and strengthening social cohesion, which means that the regional development strategy converges towards the same parameters of knowledge, innovation and valorisation of human capital in all cases.
Furthermore, the proposed PhD Programme in Regional Development, with its advanced training in research, will be able to contribute to the smart specialisation of regions, enabling, among other aspects, the identification of the characteristics and exclusive assets of the area of study in question, its competitive advantages and the appropriate governance in the process so that it is possible to bring together the participants around a development strategy.
Therefore, the development of studies that contribute to quality research training in the area of regional development is of strategic interest to our region, enabling the advanced training of researchers in this field to contribute to creating a critical mass of knowledge that serves to promote sustainable economic and social development. The proposed Program aims to address this social need, filling the gap currently observed in the field of higher education in our region in this area.
According to data from the European Union's statistics office, the outermost regions are among those most affected by the unemployment problem. Except for the Azores and Madeira, the rest of the regions had unemployment rates much higher than the EU average. In fact, Réunion, the Canary Islands, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana are among the ten regions of the European Union with the highest unemployment rate, with the Canary Islands occupying first place in this ranking. This reflects the fragility and vulnerability of the economy of the outermost regions and of the Canary Islands in particular.
In the case of the Canary Islands, which is the region with the highest unemployment rate, it should be noted that in the period 2007-2011 its unemployment rate registered an increase of more than 12 percentage points. The impact of the crisis has had a brutal impact on the real economy of the archipelago. In the second quarter of 2007 the unemployment rate in the Canary Islands was 9.7%. In two and a half years it had practically tripled. This episode is not new in the recent economic history of the archipelago, although it is increasingly virulent, a clear symptom of the exhaustion of the patterns on which growth in the Islands has been based until now.
Likewise, one of the most worrying features of unemployment in Spain and the Canary Islands is youth unemployment. At a national level, before the crisis, the unemployment rate for those aged between 20 and 24 was double the average, and that for young people under 20 was more than triple. Since the outbreak of the economic crisis, these percentages have increased substantially, reaching around 42 and 60 percent respectively in 2011.
In 2012, the youth unemployment rate in the Canary Islands was almost 10 percentage points above the national average, and tripled the average for the EU-27. There was also a greater incidence of gender differences in the Canary Islands labour market.
Consult tables.
The coincidence of high unemployment rates and declines in convergence levels in these outermost enclaves is worrying. In fact, the structural fragility of the ORs means that the risk of divergence is a permanent factor which, if not adequately assessed, can seriously undermine the principle of equal opportunities.
As regards the evolution of the EU Regional Competitiveness Index, the situation for the ORs is also not favourable. This index incorporates a wide range of issues related to competitiveness, innovation, quality of institutions, infrastructure (including digital networks) and measures of health and human capital, and will be a crucial tool in helping EU regions to set the right priorities to further increase their competitiveness.
Analysis and forecasting of academic, social and/or professional demand both nationally and internationally
Based on the experience of both the Doctoral Program "Training, Employment and Regional Development" and the Doctoral Program "Regional Development, Training and Employment", for the proposed Program it is considered that the potential demand from students will come mainly from students who have graduated in the following degrees as potential applicants for postgraduate studies:
According to the data obtained from the survey conducted by the Dean's team of the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences among students in the final years of the Bachelor's Degree in Economics and the Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration to gather useful information for the design of the Postgraduate Programs, it can be concluded that:
Regarding the average number of graduates in official Master's degrees from the ULL in the academic years 2007/08 to 2011/12, it can be seen that more than 60% correspond to Official Master's degrees in the area of Social and Legal Sciences.
Given the unavailability of comprehensive data on the results of Doctoral Programmes, and the fact that the proposed Programme is the result of the initial transformation of the Doctoral Programme “Training, Employment and Regional Development” and of the current “Regional Development, Training and Employment”, the behaviour of the demand for these Doctoral Programmes is very useful for estimating the future demand for the proposed Doctoral Programme in Regional Development. These data are collected in sections 3.3 and 8.3 of this report.
On the other hand, the potential for attracting foreign students is high. Since the 1999/2001 biennium, the Doctoral Program in Training, Employment and Regional Development has been taught in Venezuela under the agreement signed between the University of La Laguna and several Venezuelan universities (Universidad Experimental de Guayana (UNEG) and Universidad de Los Andes (ULA). It is important to maintain this framework of cooperation and to expand it in the new EEA scenario. The work carried out during these years, as well as the success of the Program, have had a very favorable impact on the international projection of the University of La Laguna, with other South American Universities becoming interested in our doctoral program and culminating in new collaboration agreements with Brazil and Mexico. At the same time, we are in contact with several Latin American universities for the establishment of a new Doctoral Program. of collaboration agreements that incorporate postgraduate studies (Master's and Doctorate in Regional Development).
In the Doctoral Programme we have also had university students from the African continent, and without a doubt, within the new role that the European Union assigns to the outermost regions in its framework of cooperation with third countries, the Canary Islands have enormous potential to become not only a logistics platform but, above all, a training platform, thus contributing to the development of the neighbouring continent in a crucial area such as regional development. The advanced training that graduates from these countries can acquire would undoubtedly be very useful for the decision-making process and the design and implementation of sustainable regional development programmes. The Canary Islands are in a very advantageous position to be an advanced training platform for graduates from these countries. In this regard, we should highlight the collaboration agreement with the University of Katyavala Bwila (UKB-Angola) and those that are in the process of negotiation in other countries on the African continent.
Full-time and part-time students
In its first year of implementation, the Doctoral Programme in Regional Development offers a total of 20 new places, 8 of which are intended for part-time students.
Affiliation of the Program to the Doctoral School and relationship with the R&D&I strategy of the ULL
The University of La Laguna approved, at the meeting of its Governing Council on 26 September 2013, the Regulations for the Creation of the Doctoral School, which will integrate all the Official Doctoral Programmes. The Regulations establish that, until the effective creation of the School, the programmes will be assigned to the Faculties in which they are taught. In the case of the proposed programme, the affiliation centre is, therefore, the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences.
The proposed doctoral program is not (yet) attached to a doctoral school because the University of La Laguna approved, in its Governing Council dated September 26, 2013, the Operating Regulations of its Doctoral School, and as of today it has not begun its activity, so the official doctoral programs of the ULL will continue to be temporarily attached to the Faculties in which they are taught or those that have proposed them, as stated in the Regulations for Official Doctoral Studies of the ULL. In our case, among the current Official Doctoral Programmes of the ULL is the Doctoral Programme in Regional Development, Training and Employment, which It has the Quality Mention by Resolution of October 20, 2008, of the Secretary of State for Universities, which is taught at the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences and which constitutes the basis on which this proposal has been built.
On the other hand, we must point out that the University of La Laguna does not yet have a specific R&D&I Plan, although it does have a Strategic Research Plan, which was drawn up in 2008 and which includes the lines of research developed in the current official Doctoral Programme in Regional Development, Training and Employment, and those of the proposed Regional Development programme. Thus, for example, on page 15 of the Strategic Plan, these two opportunities for planning the ULL's research activity in the Branch of Social and Legal Sciences are indicated, among others, which are closely related to the subject matter of the Proposed Doctoral Programme:
Likewise, the theme of Regional Development is a cross-cutting issue in the Tricontinental Atlantic Campus, Canary Islands International Campus of Excellence (CEI). It should be noted that among the actions contemplated in the CEI are those related to the consolidation of the UNAMUNO Network of universities of the Ultraperipheral Regions of the European Union (OR), which is led by the two public universities of the Canary Islands (the University of La Laguna and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), and in which researchers who are members of the proposed Doctoral Program participate directly, leading research actions related to the integration of African universities and research projects focused on issues of Regional Development and Sustainability. At the same time, we would like to point out that the CEI (which is a fundamental strategic commitment of the University of La Laguna, as evidenced by the fact that it has an exclusive Vice-Rectorate for its management) has promoted and strengthened the agreements and alliances of the Doctoral Program in Regional Development, Training and Employment with other Universities through its Internationalization Program, as part of the key strategy of the CEI itself.
Finally, it should be noted that the lines included in the proposed Doctoral Programme are also in line with the provisions of the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2013-2016, which incorporates topics related to regional development that cover issues related to the economy of work, training, regional planning and the environment, among others.
Likewise, we understand that the lines of research of the proposed Doctoral Programme are related to the priority lines indicated in the recently approved Horizon 2020 (more specifically, among the Challenges of Society, which includes the bioeconomy, the third is dedicated to safe, clean and efficient energy, the fifth is dedicated to the environment, and the sixth, called "Europe in a changing world, inclusive, innovative and reflective societies", which includes issues related to economic and social development, innovation and well-being); the relationship with this new programme is such that some of the researchers who direct and participate in the lines of research of the proposed Doctoral Programme are currently preparing project proposals to be presented in the next European calls.
At the regional level (Canary Islands), the Integrated Canary Plan for R&D&i 2011-2015, which constitutes the short and medium term planning in the field of Research, Innovation and Information Society, includes programs aimed at increasing Knowledge, advancing Innovation and improving Business Competitiveness. Thus, among the seven values that it sets out, the first four are directly related to the subjects developed in the Doctoral Program presented here, such as:
We therefore believe that at the European (EU), National (Spain) and Regional (Canary Islands) levels, and of course at the level of the University of La Laguna itself, emphasis is placed on strategies and actions relating to regional development, training and employment from a multidisciplinary perspective, which constitute the thematic cores included in the new Regional Development Doctoral Programme proposed, and which have also been developed in the doctoral programme in force to date, which constitutes the basis on which this new proposal is formulated.
Composition of the Technical Commission and initial Academic Commission
For the purposes of the preparation of this Report, a Technical Committee was established for its preparation, and at the request of the competent vice-chancellor, an Academic Coordinator and an Academic Committee have been provisionally proposed, as requested in the feasibility study of the Doctoral Program.
Technical Commission:
Academic Coordinator:
Academic Committee:
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