Spain’s Organic Law 2/2023 on the University System (LOSU) outlines three core missions of universities: teaching, research, and the transfer and exchange of knowledge. For an institution to be recognized as a university, it must meet adequate standards across all these areas. “The problem is that, unlike public universities, private institutions typically allocate very limited resources to research,” explained Sanz-Casado. As of the 2024–25 academic year, Spain has 50 public and 41 private universities, according to data from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

The IUNE Observatory serves as a vital tool for monitoring the scientific activity of institutions across both public and private sectors. Its annual reports assess university R&D&I through 42 indicators grouped into eight key dimensions: scientific output, analysis by subject area, emerging research activity, training capacity, competitiveness, funding, innovation, and academic staff. “To my knowledge, no other country has such a comprehensive and publicly accessible observatory for university scientific activity,” Sanz-Casado added.

Academic staff in public and private universities

The number of tenured faculty members in public and private universities has evolved significantly over the past decade. While staffing growth in public universities (including civil servants and permanent contract holders) has slowed, private universities have experienced annual increases of around 6%, reaching a peak of 11.73% in the most recent period.

In terms of scientific productivity per faculty member, public universities steadily increased their output until 2021, reaching 1.15 publications per professor, before seeing a slight decline to 1.02% in 2022. In contrast, productivity at private institutions has remained stagnant at approximately 0.4 publications per professor, despite staff increases. “This trend reflects both the steady rise in output and the lack of faculty renewal in public universities,” the report notes.

Scientific publications

The overall annual growth in scientific publications has slowed from an average of 5.92% to 4.86%. Similarly, the average productivity of the Spanish University System—measured as publications per professor—has decreased from a growth rate of 6.32% to 5.47%.

“These figures confirm a downward trend in recent years, driven in part by declining faculty numbers at public universities, which have decreased at an average rate of 0.6% annually in the current decade,” the report states. “Spanish universities—especially public ones—are the main drivers of research in the country and serve as a backbone for the national scientific system. Strengthening collaboration between universities and other key stakeholders in the system is essential,” the report concludes.

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, as well as by a large number of institutions such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Rectors’ Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for  Industrial Technological Development  (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

More information:  

The study, recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics, found that the predisposition of family businesses to promote green policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions is even greater when family members are involved in the governance system of the corporation through their participation in the Board of Directors.

“We have also seen that when the founding generation continues at the helm of the company, the efforts of family businesses to be more environmentally sustainable are even more accentuated,” says one of the researchers, María José Sánchez Bueno, a professor in the UC3M Department of Business Economics.

The study, in which 22 European countries are represented (making the results generalisable to Europe as a whole), also found that family businesses that undertake these types of practices aimed at promoting sustainability from an environmental point of view also perform better financially. 

“It may be surprising, but our study shows that the reduction of pollution, far from entailing a cost to society or an 'economic price' for companies, can improve both the social and financial benefits derived from actions linked to corporate social responsibility,” concludes María José Sánchez Bueno.

The results of this study could have important societal implications since the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is now essential to ensure the long-term protection of the planet, according to the researchers. 

To carry out the study, the researchers used emissions data (from family and non-family businesses) published by the European Emissions Trading System, which is a cornerstone of the European Union's climate change policy, and from Amadeus, a database that provides information on the type of ownership and financial indicators of companies.  

Bibliographic reference: Gómez-Mejía, L.R., Muñoz-Bullón, F., Requejo, I. Sanchez-Bueno, M. J. (2025). Ethical Correlates of Family Control: Socioemotional Wealth, Environmental Performance, and Financial Returns. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-25.

The research has also revealed that the demands of women, especially those in more vulnerable socioeconomic situations and of a lower social class, are the least considered by political elites, reinforcing a double discrimination based on gender and socioeconomic status.

The authors of the study, recently published in the European Journal of Politics and Gender, also sought to determine whether the political ideology of the incumbent government or the greater presence of women in Congress had an impact on the response to women's demands. “The data showed that neither the ideology of the government nor a greater representation of women in Congress appear to to have a significant impact on the response to women’s demands. This suggests that gender inequality is not automatically corrected by these factors, but rather responds to deeper dynamics within the political system,” explains the co-author of this study, Alejandro Tirado Castro, researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

Data from 40 years 

In order to shed light on the mechanisms that might influence this difference in the response of politicians based on the gender of the complainant, Berta Caihuelas and Alejandro Tirado analysed survey data from Spain’s Centre for Sociological Research (CIS in the Spanish acronym) covering the period from 1978 to 2018. After analysing the data collected over four decades (almost the entire democratic period), the researchers developed several hypotheses. The first was based on the fact that men's demands could be prioritised by the parties because men are perceived as more active voters. However, the CIS data suggests that voter turnout is similar between the two genders. Therefore, the researchers suggest that the most likely cause of the “response gap” is the women’s lower involvement in lobbying activities, such as contact with politicians, demonstrations or membership in associations and unions.

“This factor could make it more difficult for women to bring their demands to the centres of power. However, this is an aspect that needs to be analysed in greater depth if we want to understand the barriers to more equitable representation,” the researchers conclude.

Bibliographic reference: Tirado Castro, A. Caihuelas Navajas, B. (2025). The gender gap in policy responsiveness in Spain. European Journal of Politics and Gender (published online ahead of print 2025).

However, the researcher says that there are intermediate solutions that could be based on co-regulation, i.e. the creation of supervisory bodies made up of journalists (associations, unions) and experts (jurists, sociologists, institutional representatives and citizens). This could mitigate the reservations that part of society has in relation to the media, especially when it comes to sensitive issues such as public health, since, according to other data obtained during the research, only 60% of the people who participated in the study said that they believed that journalism seeks the truth.

“It is clear that if journalists want to avoid external interference, they need to be extremely self-regulating and tell the truth with honesty and professional rigour; in a post-pandemic context, ensuring the accuracy of information is essential to protect not only the right to information, but also the right to health, two essential foundations of a democratic society,” says Carlos Maciá-Barber.

The study, based on 1,800 online interviews nationwide and recently published in Frontiers in Communication, also reflects the need for people to learn to combat disinformation and fake news from an early age, since our perception of information manipulation varies according to age. For example, the research reveals that adults feel more confident when it comes to recognising journalistic truth: “This is because media consumption is much higher among the adult population, who tend to have a relatively high level of education and feel able to distinguish between what is the truth and what is a lie,” explains the author of the research. “And precisely because of this self-perception of strength in the face of misinformation, adults are less likely to verify the news that reaches them through the media or social networks.”

In turn, the results show that young people are more aware of their vulnerability and, therefore, make more of an effort to check whether the information they receive is accurate or not. “The unwillingness of many adults to cross-check the messages they receive, especially on health issues, can represent a major risk. We thus need to be careful when it comes to consulting Dr. Google and Nurse Wikipedia. Hoaxes on social media can cost us our lives,” concludes Carlos Maciá-Barber.

Bibliographic reference: Maciá-Barber, C. (2024). The COVID-19 pandemic and journalistic ethics: Spanish citizens' demand for external control of health communication in the media. Frontiers in Communication. Sec. Media Governance and the Public Sphere Volume 9 - 2024 |

The Spandrels project, led by Andrea Ianiro, addresses the challenge of predicting turbulence, phenomena that affect the aerodynamic drag of transport vehicles and their emissions. Combining concepts of fluid mechanics and machine learning, Ianiro seeks to develop sensors that revolutionize aerodynamics, promoting the design of more sustainable transportation systems.

The proposal, inspired by nature, seeks to replicate the efficiency of sensors in insect wings, as they can accurately detect very small changes in air flow. Ianiro's goal is to design sensors based on these models to control turbulence more efficiently, reducing the need for large amounts of data.

The second project, led by Ignacio Jurado, analyzes the role of consent of losers in democratic stability. This concept, fundamental to political legitimacy, has been called into question after events such as the attack on the Capitol in the US and the Congress in Brazil.

Jurado's research will study how elite narratives and policy proposals can reinforce or weaken this consent. Combining longitudinal analyses, comparative surveys and experiments in twenty established democracies, it will seek to understand how the breakdown of consent affects political behavior and social cooperation.

The grants obtained by Andrea Ianiro and Ignacio Jurado highlight UC3M's commitment to research excellence. In total, the university has obtained 18 ERC projects since the creation of the program (8 Starting Grants, 8 Consolidator Grants and 2 Proof of Concept) with an overall funding of around 30 million euros. 

Real Influence seeks to provide an improved alternative to impact factor, which calculates the average number of citations per scientific publication. The issue with this system, according to the researchers, is that it provides information about the individual visibility of each publication but is not immune to distortions caused by highly cited articles, among other drawbacks. For example, the impact factor measurement tends to be higher in fields where publications and citations are more frequent (such as biomedical sciences or technology) or does not reflect the long-term impact of a publication (since it typically measures citations within two years after publication).

“Our initial goal in creating Real Influence was to develop a tool that would make it possible to show the visibility of all publications in a journal and allow for comparisons between them,” explains Perianes. “This approach enables comparisons of journal distributions of different sizes without distortions, which is especially important as it avoids disadvantages for journals with lower output compared to those with significantly higher publication volumes.”

To conduct the study, recently published in the journal Quantitative Science Studies, the team compared the performance of the new indicator across nearly four hundred journals in the fields of Library and Information Science, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The analysis results show that Real Influence is less vulnerable to manipulation, better represents the complete distribution of publications and, above all, provides a more detailed and fairer perspective based on the visibility of each article.

The methodology of Real Influence is inspired by the use of percentiles in fields such as economics or paediatric growth. This approach avoids biases caused by exceptionally cited articles by not only evaluating the citations received, but also considering the relative position of each article within the universe of citations within its category. This makes it easily adaptable and implementable in any data system compatible with citation studies, such as WoS or Scopus.

Reference: Perianes-Rodríguez, A. Mira, B. S. Martínez-Ávila, D.  Cabrini Grácio, M. C. Real influence: A novel approach to characterize the visibility of journals and publications. Quantitative Science Studies, págs 778–804 (2024).

Here are ten recommendations regarding certain key issues to be taken into account when it comes to pursuing a successful scientific career in Spain: 

• Funding. There are different funding opportunities available at different stages of a research career. Taking the time to learn about the calls for proposals and applying for them with guidance can help to create and consolidate research groups. There are great opportunities available regarding the frontiers of knowledge and our ability to adapt methodologies from one area of knowledge to others.

• Objectives. During the process of preparing a research project, it is important to consider its purpose but also to pay attention to its alignment with the objectives of the programme and to seek an impact in different areas (generation of knowledge, technology transfer, training of researchers, social awareness of relevant issues, etc.).

• Collaboration. Research should be a collaborative process, where projects carried out in different groups and institutions feed back into each other, providing creative solutions to emerging methodological problems and leading to a continuous evolution of the research field.

• Contacts. During the early stages of a research career, it is important to start developing an international network of contacts. For this purpose, there are numerous mobility grants available at regional, national and international level that facilitate access to prestigious research groups. Other suitable forums for this purpose involve participation in international conferences.

• Publications. When preparing a scientific article, rather than being guided by curricular purposes, it is advisable to reflect on its relevance, impact and the reproducibility of the results provided. As with grants, it is a good idea to familiarise yourself with the editorial policy and publication format by reading articles in the journal in which you wish to be published.

• Evaluation. There is a global trend, which is beginning to be seen in Spain, for scientific curricula to be evaluated in terms of quality rather than quantity. Thus, factors such as the originality of scientific contributions or their socio-economic impact are becoming increasingly important, as opposed to the number of published results and other quantitative indicators. 

• Entrepreneurship. The scientific knowledge acquired also enables the launch of technology-based companies and spin-offs created on the basis of laboratory results. Although Spain's indicators are good in terms of knowledge generation, there is much room for improvement as regards the transfer of this knowledge to the business sector.

• Patents. It is important to understand and be aware of the different industrial property protection mechanisms and how they work. Aligning strategies for the protection and dissemination of results is essential, because major opportunities can be missed and potential avenues for commercialisation can be closed off. A long-term strategy for the protection and exploitation of results is therefore recommended.

• Public dissemination of science. Clearly communicating the main ideas and implications of R&D&I raises awareness of the value of research, technological advances and their benefits for society. In addition, doing so can have a positive impact on the academic career of research staff, enhancing their profile, reputation and links with companies.

• Science and public policy. There is a growing interest in having scientific advisory mechanisms that allow institutions and government representatives to make scientifically informed decisions in areas of major social importance, such as education, health, energy and industry, among others. In this context, scientific advisors should not prescribe decisions, but rather provide objective knowledge by explaining the implications of each specific action.

Regarding productivity per lecturer, in the case of SUPE, productivity has been growing annually until 2021 (with 1.15 documents per lecturer), decreasing slightly in 2022 to 1.02%. “This result is consistent with the annual increases in production and, in practice, with the lack of replacement of the teaching staff at public universities,” say the report’s authors. However, in SUEPr, productivity per lecturer remains stagnant at around 0.4 documents, despite the higher growth in teaching staff. 

General slowdown

The new edition of the IUNE Observatory’s annual report  shows a slowdown in the fall of the Spanish University System (SUE, in its Spanish acronym)’s main research indicators compared to those observed since the 2008 financial crisis, with a gradual recovery from 2020 onwards. 

According to the data in this edition, the number of scientific publications has gone from growing annually at an average of 5.92% to 4.86% (practically one percentage point less). On a similar scale, the average productivity of the SUE (measured by the number of publications per lecturer) has decreased from 6.32% to 5.47%. ”This data confirms the trend of recent observatories in which decreases in these indicators have been observed, which are due, in part, to reductions in the number of teaching staff at public universities, which have fallen by 0.6% annually in the current decade,” say the report’s authors. 

In terms of research collaboration indicators for the period studied, the percentage of publications in international collaboration stands at 50.8%, increasing over the years at an average annual rate of 6.5%. On the other hand, 26.1% of publications are in national collaboration, with an average annual growth rate of 4.4%. Finally, non-collaborative publications account for 23.2% of the total and have been gradually decreasing, with the exception of the years 2020 and 2021, when they experienced a slight increase.

Just over half (51%) of the SUE’s scientific work is published in high-visibility journals (of the so-called first quartile), of which 7.8% appear in the top three journals of their subject category (Top3). As for the percentage of open access publications, there has been a considerable increase in the total number of SUE publications, as they have almost doubled (from 39.8% to 73.48%) in the decade studied.

Regarding innovative activity, the number of patents registered by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO) has been decreasing significantly since 2014 (when the maximum value of the series was reached, with 665 patents). In 2020, it reached its minimum value and has risen slightly in subsequent years, reaching a total of 232 patents in 2022, the last year of the study. 

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the (Spanish) Ministry of Universities, as well as by a large number of institutions such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Rectors’ Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for  Industrial Technological Development  (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

More information:  

BRAVIOO, funded by the European Union (GA 101129180), is coordinated by UC3M's University Ombudsman Office and involves collaboration with the University Ombudsman Office for Students at the Universidade da Beira Interior (Portugal) and the Spanish consulting firm OpenODS as European partners. Eight Latin American universities are participating in the project: two in Argentina (the National University of Cordoba and the National University of the Northeast); two in Bolivia (the Private Technological University of Santa Cruz and the Private University of Valle); two in Chile (the Adolfo Ibáñez University and the University of La Frontera); and two in Honduras (the National Autonomous University of Honduras and the Francisco Morazán National Pedagogical University).

Project activities focus on providing training tools for participating entities through MOOC courses, which can be easily revised and updated. Additionally, rules and regulations will be developed to facilitate the establishment and reinforcement of University Ombudsman Offices. “The aim is to foster idea exchange, share experiences, and strengthen ties between European and Latin American cultures to establish and standardize Ombudsman Offices across all participating universities,” adds María del Mar Sánchez Pinilla, UC3M's Deputy University Ombudsman.

BRAVIOO (Building Reinforced and Advanced Capacities in Human Rights between Latin American and European HEIs increasing the Visibility and Institutionalization of Ombudspersons Offices) falls under the Capacity Building High Education within the Erasmus+ program, promoting transnational cooperation projects among higher education institutions. Objectives include modernizing and internationalizing higher education, increasing cooperation with the EU, and fostering intercultural awareness.

The UC3M International Relations Service collaborates in administrative and financial activities throughout the project phases, providing support from proposal to project management and justification. “We also assist all consortium partners in meeting legal and administrative requirements mandated by the European Commission,” notes the Erasmus+ International Projects Manager Raquel Navalpotro Gil from UC3M's International Relations Service.

“The project has been highly regarded by the European Commission, securing maximum funding (approximately 800,000 euros) and being one of the few projects to involve four non-European countries,” states Emilio Olías. “This presents a significant challenge, but also a deeply gratifying opportunity,” he concludes.

More information:

UC3M University Ombudsman Office (in Spanish):
/defensoria-universitaria/inicio 

These results suggest a growing distrust in science among young people, which explains, for example, the lack of scientific vocations in this segment. "Young people don't want to go into careers in science, technology and mathematics, because they believe that science is not a method for the search for truth and even that it is dangerous for the future of human beings," says one of the study's authors, Carlos Elías, a Professor of Journalism in UC3M's Department of Communication.

"It is paradoxical, and very worrying, that the generations with the greatest access to information and education, the best educated in the history of Spain, are the ones that consume the least information and are the most distrustful of science and journalism, two fields that share the search for truth. We must reflect deeply on what is happening," says Alberto Quian, a lecturer of Journalism at USC and co-author of the study.

The results of this work show that age and ideology are the factors that have the greatest effect on the use of different types of information sources. With regard to the consumption of traditional media, the people who consult them most are those at the political centre, while those on the left tend to rely more on official sources (such as health authorities); in contrast to those on the right, who prefer research organisations (such as the CSIC, the Carlos III Institute, etc.) or universities. On the other hand, "anti-vaxxers, however, prefer alternative sources (programmes such as Cuarto Milenio or La Estirpe de los Libres, for example). And this is because the traditional media support vaccines," the researchers point out.

This work, funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Community of Madrid and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, is based on a descriptive survey of a sample of 1,800 people, representative of the Spanish population, of legal age and residents of the 17 autonomous communities, carried out between the 6th and 22nd of June 2022.

The results of this work could be applied in the field of education and public policy, according to the researchers. "I think we need to influence schools, colleges and universities, in something called 'educommunication', so that young people understand what the reliable sources are and the implications of science and the scientific method," says Carlos Elías. 

More information: Quian, Alberto; Elías, Carlos; Soengas-Pérez, Xosé (2023). “Consumption of information and citizen’s perception of the sources consulted during the Covid-19 pandemic: A study of the situation based on opinion polls”. Profesional de la información, v. 32, n. 4, e320413.    

"The need arises from the limited number of studies that have focused on examining the proportion and influence of gender on two of the most relevant indicators of scientific evaluation: visibility and citations. Despite the fact that there is observational evidence that shows that women continue to have structural imbalances in the exercise of their research careers, this work offers empirical evidence that highlights the difficulties for women in academic careers," says Manuel Goyanes, a lecturer in UC3M's Department of Communication and one of the authors of the article.

To carry out this study, the research team compiled information from the Scopus and Scival databases, which contain a list of the most productive authors in different disciplines. The study was limited to research staff in the field of communication in Europe and the United States and the period of analysis was from 2010 to 2019.

The results show that of the 5,500 academics with the highest productivity rates, 3,954 are men and 1,546 are women. When filtered by country, the percentage of men is also significantly higher in each of them, with Germany and Ukraine as the countries with the greatest gender inequalities. The countries with the highest parity are Spain and the United States, although the situation is far from equal.

"The results show that men are still more productive, from which we can conclude that women's views, projects and expectations are overlooked. Women are also under-represented among the most productive elite. This does not correspond to the sociological distribution of the analysed area, where the number of female researchers is greater than that of male researchers and where they are also a majority as first authors in the main communication journals," says Goyanes.

On the other hand, the study shows that the most productive women's articles have greater visibility than those of the most productive men. However, their articles are less cited. "In other words, with an equal number of visits to their articles, women are less cited than men. Assuming that the first step in citing an article is reading it, the most productive women in communication need greater visibility in order to have similar citation levels to men," explains the researcher.

In future lines of research, the aim is to continue analysing the inequalities of women in science, "emphasising these imbalances at different levels, such as access to editorial committees of scientific journals, co-authorship, scientific awards or academic reputation," concludes Manuel Goyanes.

Bibliographic reference:

Rajkó, A., Herendy, C., Goyanes, M., & Demeter, M. (2023). The Matilda Effect in Communication Research: The Effects of Gender and Geography on Usage and Citations Across 11 Countries. Communication Research, 00936502221124389.

In 1985, coinciding with the release of 'La calabaza mágica' (‘The Magic Pumpkin’), the third golden age of animation in Spain began, the end of which cannot be determined yet. The study "An Age of Splendour for Contemporary Spanish Animation: Evolution of an Industry Over the Last Four Decades", carried out by Mercedes Álvarez San Román, a lecturer in UC3M's Department of Communication and member of the TECMERIN research group, analyses this last period. The article has been published in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, a world reference on animation studies.

The research establishes three distinct phases: germinal, take-off and consolidation. "This subdivision is based on the premieres of feature films that have represented a turning point in the sector, both in terms of their production system and funding, their subject matter, their distribution and their impact on other productions", says the researcher.

The germinal phase includes the 16 feature films made between 1985 and 2000. In this period, the regional and multi-regional cinema that emerged in the political, social and cultural context of post-Transition Spain stands out. Some of the newly created Autonomous Communities helped to promote the animation production with the aim of familiarising the new generations with the co-official languages, traditions and legends of the area. This generated a fabric that favoured the production of the first 3D feature film in Spain and Europe, 'Megasónicos' (‘Megasonics’) (1997). Regarding this production made in the Basque Country, Mercedes Álvarez San Román points out that "it was made with two computers and the cinematographic language it uses is still close to that of 2D, with limited camera movements and cartoon-style deformations of the characters' bodies".

The take-off phase begins with the release of 'El bosque animado' (‘The Animated Forest’) (2001). It covers the period between 2001 and 2008, during which 38 animated feature films were produced. One of the factors that increased production was the creation of new television channels, which led to an increase in demand for audiovisual content and, in addition, increased the possibilities for funding, as they were required by law to allocate five percent of their profits to film production. Another factor in the boom was the establishment of the video market, which opened up a new avenue for the amortisation of films. The economic boom and global trade were also key. The films from this period went beyond the regional sphere and titles on national themes were released, such as 'El Cid: la leyenda' (El Cid: the legend) (2003).

The last phase is consolidation and begins with the release of 'Planet 51' (2009). In the period between 2009 and 2021, 66 feature films were made and Spain became the second largest producer of animation in Europe and the fifth largest in the world. These years are notable due to the emergence of large transnational productions and the emergence of animated films for adult audiences. During these years some of the most successful films were produced both nationally and internationally, such as 'Chico and Rita' (2010), 'Arrugas' ('Wrinkles') (2011), ‘Las aventuras de Tadeo Jones’ ('The Adventures of Tadeo Jones') (2012) or 'Klaus' (2019).

"The animation sector in Spain is characterised by its low production costs and the high number of projects carried out entirely with funding from within the country. This development has had an impact on the public visibility of animation. It has gone from being a peripheral production, not only geographically, to achieving box-office successes and high levels of export", concludes Álvarez San Román.

This analysis is part of the R+D+i project "Cinema and television in Spain in the era of digital change and globalisation (1993-2008): identities, consumption and forms of production", whose lead researcher is the lecturer Manuel Palacio, from the Department of Communication. It is funded by the Spanish State Research Agency. 

Bibliographic reference:

Álvarez San Román, M. (2022). An Age of Splendour for Contemporary Spanish Animation: Evolution of an Industry Over the Last Four Decades. Animation, 17(3), 302–317.

This goal is at the origin of the proposal which involved lecturers from the Social Sciences Department (the aforementioned, as well as Ilke Toygür, I??k Özel and Stefano Battilossi), María Luengo (Communication), Natalia Fabra (Economics), Antonio Estella (Public Law), Ángel Cuevas (Telematics Engineering) and Maria José Álvarez (Business Economics). "Thanks to this interdisciplinary dialogue, the goal is to strengthen the role of citizens, politics and civil society in the European policy-making process in order to be able to address the challenges facing Europe more effectively and inclusively," says Juan Antonio Mayoral.

The centre to be set up within the framework of this €100,000 euro three-year grant has three general objectives. Firstly, to strengthen and promote excellence in teaching and interdisciplinary research in EU studies. Secondly, to promote, expand and consolidate a community of academics and relevant social, political and economic actors for the search for inclusive solutions to current EU challenges. And thirdly, to bring the EU closer to society and to Spanish and European students and young people to promote their participation in the Centre's activities.

Specifically, the following actions are planned, among others: the creation of a European degree and minors in collaboration with the YUFE Alliance; updating the contents of existing bachelor's and master's degree courses in an interdisciplinary way; and the organisation of conferences, workshops and research seminars based on a common agenda on the Europeanisation of Spanish law, economics, politics, media and society.

Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence, proposed and hosted by a higher education institution, are sources of reference and knowledge on EU-related topics. They bring together the experience and skills of high-level experts with the aim of developing synergies between the various disciplines and resources of EU studies. They also play a key role in reaching out to students from faculties that do not normally address EU-related issues, as well as policy makers, civil servants, civil society and the general public.

More information:  

Regarding productivity in research, the report notes that it has increased during the period studied. In this sense, as of 2018 all public universities have exceeded the value of one publication per lecturer per year. The universities that excel most in this area are the UPF, the UAB, the University of Barcelona (UB), the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), the UAM, the UC3M, the Miguel Hernández University (UMH), the University of Girona (UdG) and the University of Valencia (UV).

Regarding scientific collaboration data, approximately half of the publications are carried out with international co-authors, while almost a third of the publications are carried out in national collaborations.  Emerging scientific production included in the ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index), which mainly includes Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences publications, has almost doubled since 2011, with public universities responsible for 89% of this.

The impact of the research carried out by Spanish universities has grown throughout the period studied, taking into account the number of annual citations. However, there has been a general stagnation in visibility when looking at publications in first quartile journals. In contrast, the number of open access publications has almost doubled since the start of the series, accounting for 68% of all publications in 2021.

Regarding innovative activity, the number of patents registered by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM, in its Spanish acronym) has been declining since 2015, reaching the minimum value of the series in 2020 and rising slightly in 2021.

The number of permanent lecturers (staff members and those with permanent contracts) in the SUE has increased between 2012 and 2021 due to the increase in the number of lecturers in private universities, which has grown in this period at a global annual rate of 7.46%. However, in that decade, public university staff have lost 3,750 lecturers (an average negative growth of -0.54%). 

In terms of attracting and training talent, different trends are also observed, since while FPI and FPU contracts decreased moderately in the period studied, Juan de la Cierva contracts saw considerable growth. On the other hand, Ramón y Cajal contracts skyrocketed because the Juan de la Cierva incorporation contracts have been absorbed by the Ramón y Cajal call.

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the (Spanish) Ministry of Universities, as well as a large number of institutions, such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Rectors' Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

More information: 

The article “Cultural glocalisation in the age of on-demand video” focused on studying content of three SVOD platforms based in the US and with subsidiaries in a large number of countries: Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime Video. The main objective was to review a selection of audiovisual works broadcast between 2020 and 2021 to observe to what extent these productions are representative of cultural diversity.

“What we aim to do with this research is to recognise the catalogue through the technique of mapping or cartography. For a time, the idea of on-demand video was justified as a promise of unlimited catalogues where we could access all audiovisual material. We are now perhaps more aware that this was hyperbole and, in a way, an advertising strategy. This paper has analysed the new on-demand video industry from the perspective of diversity. What this article proposes is an analysis of content diversity, that is, what type of content is offered”, says Josep Pedro, lecturer in the UC3M Department of Communication and researcher in this study.

To do this, three categories have been established. The first of these is place diversity, which quantifies the works according to country of production. The second category is gender diversity, which includes works that have discourses related to feminism, empowerment, the discovery of sexuality, contemporary affective-sexual relationships and/or different types of masculinities. The final category is ethnic-racial diversity, which establishes productions that have representations of non-white ethnic-racial identities. “These categories are not exclusive because we can potentially recognise a work that is representative of place diversity, gender diversity and racial diversity at the same time”, says the researcher.

Four criteria were set to select the works for the study: they are categorised as original productions; they relate to place and gender diversity and ethnic-racial identity in terms of production, theme, narrative, characters or cast; they have been successful for the critic, the public or in terms of advertising campaigns; and they have aroused media or social coverage or controversy.

The results of this study indicate that 47% of the productions analysed fall into the category of place diversity. Likewise, 34% are categorised as gender diversity. Titles identifying with the ethnic-racial diversity category were less than 20%.

At the company level, the findings point to Netflix as the platform with the most works within these three categories, with place diversity containing the most. This is followed by Amazon Prime Video and, in last place, HBO.

"According to the results, Netflix emerges as the SVOD whose catalogue most closely fits the content diversity categories tracked. While one of the keys to Netflix's success lies in its ability to engage with different regional cultures through its 'originals', HBO and Amazon Prime Video's 'originals' illustrate a greater hegemony of the US and the UK, which remains the main player in the European film and TV audiovisual industry", Josep Pedro concludes. 

Bibliographic reference: Pedro, J. (2022). Cultural glocalisation in in the age of on-demand video. Content diversity on Netflix, HBO and Prime Video. Visual Review. International Visual Culture Review, vol. 9, 1–13. . 

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“The adoption of electoral systems that generate incentives to cultivate the vote for people (open lists), as occurs in Brazil, Finland, Luxembourg or Switzerland, for example, can contribute to creating less ideological elections and, therefore, to reducing polarisation”, says one of the study’s authors, Pedro Riera, a lecturer in UC3M’s Social Sciences Department. 

In open list electoral systems, the parties do not establish an order of candidates, but the voters themselves determine it. That is, a party's most voted candidate is ranked in first place, while the second most popular candidate is ranked in second place, and so on. In these cases, "the personal characteristics of the candidates have a great influence: Who are you? Where were you born? What have you done? What do you do for a living?  Where do you live?... these are things that citizens take into account when voting," says Professor Riera. "And there is much more competition between candidates from the same party, something that doesn't happen in Spain where closed lists are used and where it makes no sense for the 23rd candidate on a list to compete with the candidate in 19th place," he explains. 

This work, which was carried out with the collaboration and financial support of the BBVA Foundation, through a Leonardo scholarship, and the Ramón Areces Foundation, tries to contribute an additional argument to the ongoing discussion in the academic field about reforms that may be necessary in electoral systems. "One of the things we suggest, based on our results, is that the adoption of open lists may have this potential advantage of making political elections less ideological and perhaps more focused on other types of elements that different candidates can contribute," adds Pedro Riera.

Bibliographic reference: Riera, P. Cantú, F. (2022). Electoral systems and ideological voting. European Political Science Review, Volume 14 , Issue 4 , November, pp. 463 – 481. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773922000248 

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This study, published in the journal Socio-Economic Review, shows that having a black or Asian/Indigenous American phenotype reduces the likelihood that the employer will be interested in the candidate by approximately 20% (averaged across the three countries in the study: Germany, Spain and the Netherlands), while having a dark-skinned Caucasian phenotype (very prevalent in North Africa) reduces this averaged likelihood by approximately 10%, when compared to having a white phenotype. These estimates capture the effect of applicants’ phenotype on European employers’ responses, once isolated from the effect of the applicants’ region of ancestry. However, the study also shows that the combined effect of ethnic background and phenotype can lead to serious levels of discrimination in Europe.

To carry out the study, researchers analysed the responses of almost 13,000 European companies to fictitious job applications in these three European countries where attaching a photograph to CVs is a common practice. The researchers changed the names and photographs that appeared on the fictitious job applications (keeping all other CV characteristics identical) which were submitted to real vacancies for a wide range of occupations. All fictitious applicants were young European country nationals  (with the nationality of the country of the experiment) born to parents from four major regions of the world (Europe-USA, Maghreb-Middle East, Latin America-Caribbean  and Asia). This ethnic ancestry was indicated in the CVs mainly through the applicants’ full names. The photographs used in the CVs were carefully selected to be comparable in physical attractiveness, but varied crucially in racial appearance across four phenotypic groups (labeled “Black”, “Asian/Indigenous American” “Dark-skinned Caucasian” and “White Caucasian”). This design enabled the researchers to obtain the first estimates of racial discrimination comparable across countries recorded in the field-experimental literature.

“Most of what we knew about racial discrimination in job recruitment to date came from Anglo countries, especially the US, where the use of photographs in job applications is prohibited by law. This forced researchers to estimate racial discrimination using only the applicants’ names, which is very problematic. A crucial advantage of our study is that we investigated the role of phenotype and ethnic background as potentially different triggers of discrimination by exploiting plausible phenotypic variation in large regions of ancestry”, explains the study’s leading author, Javier Polavieja, Banco Santander Professor of Sociology at UC3M, where he runs the Laboratory on Discrimination and Inequality (D-Lab).

“According to our estimates, in the three countries studied, applicants of Maghreb and Middle Eastern descent with black phenotypes have to submit approximately fifty percent more applications to receive a call from employers than applicants with identical CVs but with European namesand white phenotypes. These estimates of discrimination are comparable in size, if not superior, to those usually found in the case of African Americans in the United States. Discrimination against applicants with black phenotypes and European or American parents is somewhat lower but also significant”, explains Susanne Veit, director of the DeZIM laboratory and one of the study’s co-authors.

Country differences

The researchers also analysed patterns of racial discrimination in the three countries in the experiment and found some significant differences between Spain and the two northern countries. “Our results suggest that phenotype acts as an autonomous trigger of discrimination in Germany and the Netherlands, reducing employment opportunities for non-white applicants regardless of their parental origin. However, in Spain discrimination seems to be restricted to certain combinations of phenotype and ancestry, particularly those in which applicants’ physical appearance is most prototypical of their region of ancestry”, says Javier Polavieja. “This doesn’t mean that phenotype is irrelevant in Spain, it isn’t at all; it only means that its effect on employers’ responses seems more difficult to disentangle from the effect of applicants’ ethnic ancestry”, he clarifies.

The study was carried out as part of the GEMM (Growth, Equal opportunities, Migration & Markets) project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (GA 649255) and has received additional funding from the D-Project (Pushing the Boundaries of Research on Ethno-Racial Discrimination in Hiring) (PID2020-119558GB-I00), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033).

Bibliographic reference: Polavieja, J., Lancee, B., Ramos, M.  Veit, S. and Yemane, R. (2023). In Your Face: A Comparative Field Experiment on Racial Discrimination in Europe. Socio-Economic Review, mwad009, https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad009

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“A society without spectacle is headed towards totalitarianism. All rhetoric of the “immersive” type is oriented toward propping up that loss of spectacular distance with the narrative. [...] Without this distance, the very notion of the political, knowledge, and freedom is in peril. Neither criticism nor freedom is possible without distance from representation”, observed Professor Carrera.

The “ideology of transparency” and the simulation of empowerment in the digital environment have perpetrated this shortening of the space between the stage and the audience, “directly devouring the audience and having them, supposedly, go up on stage.” In contrast, the article points to the mystics as the most radical theorists of the spectacle, with a discourse “in which the Self becomes a spectacular device, not a commodity that nurtures a reified and technocratic discourse. The mystic Self reestablishes the subject as a political space and intimacy as a transitional place in which discourse and action once again encounter each other”, the author explained. 

As an example of the spectacular logic, the author cites Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone, because of the way of inhabiting the language it represents and as reflection upon a broader and more political notion of spectacle. 

Myriad analyses of this play have interpreted it as the struggle of an Antigone, representative of the private logic against political power: “clashes of private conscience and public welfare”, in the words of George Steiner. That is, the generalized interpretation is that of Antigone as an impassioned private subject, in line with a generalized cliché of femininity, and Creon symbolizing the cold-heartedness of power. However, Carrera’s proposal is in opposition to that interpretation and holds that “Creon did not consider the logic of Antigone to be the private or sentimental at all, as has been systematically interpreted; he considered it framed completely within the dimension of the public”. Furthermore, she added: “Antigone is resistance, yes, but not the resistance of the private individual to power. Antigone is the political, an eminently discursive act of resistance, defense, and attack against Creon, in whom the political has become ossified, reduced to the most primary, defensive expression and who can only maintain his position by resorting to physical violence and repression (...) Creon represents the political as a parapet that keeps him from being destroyed by his errors, his failures and his lies to the citizens.  It is clearly Creon who has turned the political into a domestic and personal matter, not Antigone”.

In this sense, Antigone is reclaimed as a figure of resistance, not, as it has been said, of the individual against power nor against patriarchy: “Antigone is a pitched battle played out in the scenario of language until Creon’s arrogance and impotency against the dialectic capacity of Antigone breaks the agreement and puts an end to the dialogic. If Antigone were simply the female doomed to end in a sacrificial fight against patriarchy it would not have endured nor would her figure or diction continue to fascinate [...]. What is tragic in the tragedy is the language, not the destiny of some characters who should not be identified with persons in the habitual sense. That is always the tragedy of language, staged at a point in which there is no possibility of judgement nor empathy”, the professor explained. 

Bibliographic reference:

Carrera, P. (2023). . Signa: Revista de la Asociación Española de Semiótica, 32, 289-308.

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Unlike what was expected, the results of this research show that, when carrying out political discussions in the classroom, girls lose even more self-confidence and the gender gap is further accentuated.

The European consortium G-EPIC, in which 天美传媒 team is taking part, led by Gema García Albacete, a lecturer from the Social Sciences Department, aims to identify why this happens, as well as to design a methodology and guide to be used in schools.

To understand how inequalities in political attitudes and orientations arise, G-EPIC will start by carrying out classroom observations and quantitative data analysis. In addition, the research team will use experimental techniques among closed groups of students to identify aspects that limit the development of political confidence. These experiments and interventions will be evaluated through comparisons with control groups.

G-EPIC will also carry out an evaluation of the national context and the local and European political framework to design strategies and regulations that promote more equitable political participation in terms of gender. The methodology generated within the framework of this project aims to become an international reference of good practices to promote gender equity in politics from the classroom. This guide will be distributed to schools across Europe, with the aim of making it possible to reduce gender inequalities in political participation and leadership.

This project, which will last for 36 months and which is funded with 3 million euros by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe programme (GA 101095000), is coordinated by the Free University of Brussels (Belgium). Together with UC3M, in Spain, also participating are the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (Germany), the University of Roehampton (United Kingdom), Aarhus University (Denmark), Charles University (Czech Republic) and the European organisation Gender5+. 

This European call, with a success rate of 14 percent, is allocating 657 million euros to 321 research projects from all over the continent (selected from 2,222 proposals).

The relevance of judicial trust

“The relevance of judicial trust for the legal integration of Europe” is the title of the research project led by Juan Antonio Mayoral that has obtained ERC funding for the next five years. Its main objective is to define the interdisciplinary nature of the concept of trust between judges in the European Union’s legal system.

As part of the project they aim to develop empirical indicators that are useful in different aspects. Firstly, to help determine legal, sociological and political factors that lead judges to trust or distrust one another. Secondly, these indicators will be used to test the impact that judicial trust has on cooperation between courts through mechanisms such as, for example, preliminary rulings where national judges have the power to request the European Union Court of Justice to assist them in the interpretation of EU law.

For this work the project will implement a mixed methods design combining the legal analysis of judicial decisions with interviews, experiments and surveys of judges from the 27 member countries of the European Union and the EU Court of Justice.

"The results will help to understand the importance of trust for the functioning of judicial systems and to identify practices and institutions that are capable of increasing mutual trust within European courts" explains Juan Antonio Mayoral. In fact, this proposal "has generated interest from both judges and various judicial organisations, including the European Network of Judicial Councils, whose support and participation will be crucial for the project to succeed," he says.

Finally, regarding the Consolidator Grant competition process, Juan A. Mayoral emphasises that "obtaining a grant of this magnitude is also the result of the hard work carried out and support received by the family, staff and colleagues at UC3M and other institutions where I have developed my career, such as iCourts".

UC3M is one of the Spanish universities with the highest number of ERC grants, a commitment to the internationalisation of EU research. Specifically, the University has already obtained 14 ERC projects (8 Starting Grants and 6 Consolidator Grants) with a total funding of approximately 24 million euros.

More information:

Regarding discrimination between journalistic genres, 92.1% say that they are able to distinguish between information and opinion, but researchers found that 64.4% confuse an opinion piece with an informative text. In relation to the preferred platforms to get information, the majority do so through social media (55.5%), television (29.1%) and their family and friends groups (7.9%), ahead of digital newspapers (6.5%) or radio (1%).

Researchers have studied how teenagers deal with the media from a mixed approach. Firstly, they carried out a quantitative analysis, surveying more than 1600 ESO students from public schools in Spain. Secondly, they carried out more than 75 in-depth interviews with teachers at this level of education. According to the teaching staff at these schools, among students there is a media consumption which is characterised by the intensive and uncritical use of certain audiovisual and digital media such as TikTok, Instagram or YouTube.

Following the interviews with teachers, the majority of secondary school teaching staff noted the opportunity to introduce content related to how the media works into the curriculum. In this sense, they have detected that when working with students in the classroom on topics related to the content they consume on their social media, the students’ motivation and attention is greater.

This research, carried out with the support of a BBVA Foundation Leonardo Grant for Cultural Researchers and Creators, shows that media and information literacy is still a pending subject in the secondary school curriculum.

More information: Herrero-Curiel, E., & La-Rosa, L. (2022). Secondary education students and media literacy in the age of disinformation. Comunicar, 73.

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During the morning of Friday 30th, two activities will be held for secondary schools. First, at 11 am in the UC3M Auditorium, there will be a theatrical show with talks by researchers on various aspects related to our well-being, such as water, pollution caused by aeroplanes, the health of our cells or technology’s impact on our body’s perception. Secondly, at 12 pm in another space on the Leganés campus, there will be a talk on the artificial skin which is manufactured by 3D bioprinting in UC3M’s research laboratories.

During the afternoon of Friday 27th September, two other activities will be held. A webinar on diversity, equity and inclusion in the field of open science will begin at 5 pm, while at 6 pm on the Leganés campus, there will be a workshop and demonstration on how to reduce the environmental impact of aeroplanes.

Two activities will take place on Saturday 1st October. At 10 am there will be a guided tour of a laboratory at the UC3M Science Park to carry out tests with magneto-active smart materials that can stimulate our cells. In the afternoon, at 5 pm, there will be a webinar explaining how to combine different disciplines (biology, engineering, chemistry...) and solve common problems.

These UC3M activities are part of the European Researchers’ Night, an event which includes numerous free scientific outreach activities and which is held simultaneously in more than 350 European cities. In the Community of Madrid, this project is promoted by the Ministry of Science, Universities and Innovation, coordinated by the madri+d Foundation and funded by the European Union within the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme, under grant agreement number 101,061,343. This project to support the career of research staff aims to raise awareness of their role and the importance of their work for society’s well-being.

More information:

European Researchers' Night at UC3M website

Regarding productivity in research, the report notes that it has increased during the period studied. Regarding scientific collaboration data, approximately half of the publications are carried out with international co-authors, while almost a third of the publications are carried out in national collaborations. The SUE’s impact and visibility, measured respectively in the number of annual citations and publications in first-quartile journals, have grown throughout the period studied.

Staffing costs in public universities are growing at an average annual rate of 1.7%. This expenditure was practically stagnant at around 6 billion euros per year throughout the crisis and subsequent years.

The analysis of competitiveness, through the attraction of resources, shows that it is decreasing in national projects, while it is increasing in European projects. In other words, researchers are increasingly turning to international research funding formulas.

New in this year’s edition is information on open access publications, which has almost doubled over the period analysed, reaching 59% in 2020. Another new feature is the incorporation of indicators of emerging scientific production (that generated in regional areas and new scientific fields which have gained importance in recent years) included in the ESCI index (Emerging Sources Citation Index), which mainly includes Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences publications. Since 2011, emerging scientific production has almost doubled, with public universities responsible for 97%.

The IUNE Observatory is supported by the (Spanish) Ministry of Universities, as well as a large number of institutions, such as the (Spanish) National Quality Assessment and Accreditation Agency (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Spanish University Presidents' Conference (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Catalan University System Quality Agency (AQU Catalunya, in its Spanish acronym) and the Basque University System Quality Agency (Unibasq, in its Spanish acronym).

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The essay refers to many different kinds of fragmentary structures. Drawing on a wide selection of examples ranging from cinema to painting or photography, through architecture, philosophy or music, it shows how the fragment is rooted in reality and desire, while, at the same time, turning its back on dogmatic forms of realism.

Don Quixote serves as an outstanding example of fragmentary structure. Las Meninas by Velázquez, the icon filmed at the end of Andrei Rublev by Tarkovski, the works of the architect Louis Kahn or the Victory of Samothrace are other examples that are alluded to: “Victory is not in mourning for its absent head. It is this absence that establishes it as an enigma, as an inexhaustible text, an infinite variant. The absence of a face (culturally bearing what is supposed to be the main identity traits), far from anonymising that body, enhances its being with all the strength of possible faces. Victory isn't a headless body, it's a body that promises thousands of faces, thousands of 'closures', none of them specific, all forged by the desire of the receiver. It isn't the lack that characterises this fragmented figure, it's the significant excess”.

Through this journey, La lógica del fragmento (The Logic of the Fragment) highlights the structural relationship between art and politics, a link that has been practically relegated to what is known as "committed art". Fragment and totality both belong to the realm of discourse and representation (with its ethical and political ramifications) and they do not refer to objective states of the world, but to proposals and fields of action, expectation and affection and displays of meaning, the author concludes.

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Judicialisation, Respect for institutions and Courts in Spain (JuRisT, in its Spanish acronym)
The project, led by Juan Antonio Mayoral Díaz-Asensio, from the UC3M Social Sciences Department, aims to guide judicial and political personnel on specific actions to protect the social legitimacy of the judiciary.

Responsible Algorithms – Development of a European regulatory framework for the responsible automation of decision-making and contractual relationships
The research team, coordinated by Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell, from the UC3M Private Law Department, will analyse whether the European system is suitable for the use of automation in the contractual cycle, creating a Practical Guide to improve the system of algorithms and artificial intelligence.

The positive effects of making disagreements on social media visible
The main goal of the project, led by Antonio Gaitán Torres from the UC3M Department of Humanities – Philosophy, Language and Literature, is to understand the effects of making moral disagreements visible in digital contexts, in relation to the phenomena of polarisation, segregation, extremism and radicalisation.

The projects selected in this programme have received funding of more than 130,000 euros in total.

The BBVA Foundation received a total of 620 applications for this contest, from which 35 projects have been selected.

In addition, it points out that the rise of the Internet has contributed substantially to the economic devaluation of news production. "Cost-free culture is a phenomenon that has emerged from the popularisation of the Internet, which we define as a tendency of citizens to consider news as a public good that should be made available to society for free," says Goyanes.

This study analyses the relationship between citizens and digital information, in a context where news has lost its traditional value as a differentiated product: "If many newspapers find themselves in a difficult financial situation, it is precisely because they aren't investing in the human and technological resources required to offer an interesting product", says the researcher.

Bibliographic reference: Goyanes, M., Demeter, M. y  de Grado, L. (2022). The culture of free: Construct explication and democratic ramifications for readers’ willingness to pay for public affairs news. Journalism, 23(1), 207-223.

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The cost for the European Union of non-FAIR research data is approximately 10.2 billion Euros each year, according to an . “This happens because the money is invested in research, but the data that is collected (one of the most expensive parts of research) remains in each working group, without metadata, without being systematised or described—they are not shared, cannot be found and reused for further research,” explain two researchers taking part in FAIR4Health, Tony Hernández and Eva M. Méndez from the UC3M’s Department of Library and Information Sciences. 

“FAIRification” of the data 

An analysis of the main restrictions and possible ways of enabling the implementation of a FAIR data policy in EU research institutions has been carried out within the framework of this research project. To this effect, a “FAIRification” process has been implemented by the initiative, which addresses the ethical, legal and technical aspects of health data.

Just as the data is checked for accuracy, researchers believe that it can be “fairicated”, in other words, checked to see if it complies with the FAIR principles. In order to do so, “fairification” tools for health data have been developed within the framework of the FAIR4Health project. These tools consist of independent desktop applications that were developed to cure and validate data () and to de-identify and anonymise data (). 

Case studies

The FAIR4Health solution has been validated by two case studies. The first consisted of analysing the impact of multimorbidity patterns (having at least two chronic diseases) and polypharmacy (taking more than 3 medicines at the same time) on mortality rate (at 6 months) and cognitive decline in older people. 

The second case study aimed to develop, validate and assess the accuracy of a clinical decision support tool which was used to predict Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients’ readmission after being discharged.

The @FAIR4Health Improving Health Research in the EU through FAIR Data project, which recently came to an end, has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 824666. The consortium, led by the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital from the Andalusian Health Service  with the participation of the UC3M, has relied on 17 partners belonging to health research organisations, businesses and universities in eleven different countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. 

More information: 

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Having analysed “Original” productions in the catalogue of Netflix Spain from a diversity point of view, researchers have concluded that most of the titles are produced by American companies, while there are very few Spanish productions. Similarly, when examining linguistic diversity, they also highlight the fact that English is the dominant language in productions. This prevalence of English is offset by a wide range of dubbed and subtitled productions. “However, Netflix’s dubbing and subtitling strategy within the Spanish market has, so far, ignored the linguistic diversity of a country with three co-official languages in certain areas,” says Mª Trinidad García Leiva, lecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Communication and Media Studies and codirector of this project. 

Netflix’s content offering elicits debates about threats that cultural identities may face due to the large amount of American content being offered and the lack of diversity in the origin of their productions. This is why the European Union has reformulated its Audiovisual Media Services Directive, by forcing companies like Netflix to offer at least 30% European productions in its catalogues. This regulatory change has also been analysed by the UC3M’s Audiovisual Diversity research group.  

The results of this study could be of interest to entities within the sector and that are responsible for implementing policies aimed at ensuring audiovisual diversity. The “Audiovisual diversity and online platforms: The case of Netflix” project (CSO2017-83539-R) has received funding from the European Regional Development Fund from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Spanish State Research Agency. 

Currently, the UC3M’s Audiovisual Diversity research group is developing a project called “Diversity and on-demand subscription-based audiovisual services” (PID2019-109639RB-I00), which is being financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. “The aim of research is to describe and analyse, in terms of promoting and/or protecting audiovisual diversity in the industry, the changes caused by the presence of companies offering on-demand subscription-based audiovisual services in the Spanish market. Special attention is being paid to those who operate on a global scale and whose parent companies are located in the United States. In other words, Netflix Spain, HBO Spain, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Disney+”, concludes Luis A. Albornoz.

Bibliography:

Albornoz, L.A. y García Leiva, M.T. (2021). Netflix Originals in Spain: Challenging diversity. European Journal of Communication.  

According to this paper, nearly 60% of all students surveyed said that they knew how to tell the difference between real and fake news. Instead, “when we showed them four headlines (2 real and 2 fake), 50.21% guessed correctly and 49.78% did not. In particular, almost 60% recognised (guessed correctly) the fake headline in the case of two COVID-19 headlines, but the ratio was reversed when it came to news about an event, as 52.6% failed to identify a hoax about illegal immigration,” notes Herrero. 

Six out of ten students do not know the names of any journalists

The practice of making access to information available to everyone opens the door to an unprecedented flow of content. However, this does not necessarily translate into quality information. “64% of high school students are unable to name a single journalist. Among those who can name one, they are professionals who have a large presence on social media, such as Jordi Évole or Sara Carbonero”, the researcher explains. “This reflects the reality that teenagers’ media references are not, with a few exceptions, journalists or media professionals, who are supposed to be filters when sharing information, that has been checked and verified by difference sources and that are (or should be) transparent about those sources”. ºº

Teenagers follow current affairs on social media and their media references are influencers. “The most popular networks within this age group are Instagram, with 64.5%, and TikTok, with 10.4%, followed by WhatsApp, 9%, and YouTube, 5%. Respondents mentioned up to 14 different social networks and 31 influencers who they usually look to when consuming media,” says Herrero, who also points to a gender bias: “Up to 463 different influencers were mentioned in the surveys, more than 85% of which were men. Although four women (Marta Díaz, Rivers, Paula Gonu and Dulceida) appear in the Top 10 influencers overall, when asked, only men, no women, appeared in their Top 10. In other words, female referents were only included in the Top 10 of the total sample due to responses provided by women”.

The relationship with content is superficial and impulsive, says the researcher: “We asked them and found that they share things without clicking on the news article, they simply see the headline or the photo which “entices you”, which appeals to basic emotions.” This coincides with one of the perceptions that teachers—the project interviewed head teachers, subject heads, and teachers at public centres in all of the autonomous communities and in Ceuta and Melilla in depth—share: “ESO students compulsively consume audio-visual material without pausing to digest its contents. This makes it easier for everything to be believed because of a lack of critical capacity and a lack of searching for other sources. Thus, the influencer becomes a source of authority.” 

According to the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE, in its Spanish acronym), 70% of the population between the ages of 10 and 15 have access to a mobile phone, their main way of accessing the internet. However, the universalisation of the platform has not matched the development of skills that enable them to deal with the large amount of information they receive daily in a skilful and critical manner, which is precisely what media literacy seeks to do and the reason that it is part of the ESO curriculum.

Guide for ESO teachers

In partnership with maldita.es, a Guide for ESO teachers has been created which provides resources for teachers to work on media literacy in an interdisciplinary way in the classroom. This guide is freely available on the project’s website: /investigacion/alfamedeso/alfamedESO-maldita

Each municipality was assessed by giving them a score from 0 to 100 for each of the SDGs. The score comes from a number of indicators obtained from regional and national databases. The number of indicators for each SDG varies depending on differences in access to and availability of existing data. In any case, at least 2 indicators were used to generate a score for each SDG. In total, there are 103 proposed indicators, all of which have disaggregated data at a municipal level.

It is possible to identify which Goals are the closest to being achieved by analysing the SDGs. These include SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), where half of the cities have managed to reach the green threshold. Most cities achieved an average score for the rest of the SDGs. The worst performing Goal is SDG 13 (Climate Action).

The report was presented today at an online conference held in collaboration with the Madrid Federation of Municipalities and Provinces. The session also included a round table discussion with the mayors of Cercedilla, Pozuelo, and Rivas-Vaciamadrid, as well as with the Madrid City Council’s Councillor for Internationalisation. The results from different municipalities were analysed and good practices implemented in this context were discussed at the meeting.

The report, which is available to be downloaded, has been created within the framework of the “Towards the consolidation of inclusive cities, a challenge for Madrid” research project, which is being funded by the Community of Madrid’s Ministry of Education and Research through the European Union’s European Social Fund, which has been running since 2020. The results for each municipality and SDG are available on the report’s website:

This report from the IUNE Observatory, coordinated by the INAECU Institute (UAM-UC3M), monitors R&D&I within the Spanish University System (SUE, in its Spanish acronym) using a set of indicators based on several large aspects: scientific activity, analysis by areas of knowledge, training capacity, competitiveness, funding, innovation, and teaching staff.

Increase in university scientific production

In regard to scientific production, a growing trend in the number of publications in the Web of Science (WoS) has been observed, with similar year-on-year rates of change since 2016. In addition to this, publications in the first quartile journals of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), those that have had the most impact, increased between 2017 and 2019 for the entire SUE. The Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia, and Valencia have the highest number of publications in the WoS for the period between 2010 and 2019, accumulating 25%, 18%, 14%, and 11% of the total national production.  The five universities with the highest volume of publications are the University of Barcelona (UB, in its Spanish acronym), UAB, the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM, in its Spanish acronym), the University of Valencia (UV, in its Spanish acronym), and the UAM.

In relation to the ability to attract national and international funding, the main institutions that stand out are those that form part of the A4U (the UAB, the UAM, the UC3M, and the UPF). In terms of the volume of National Plan projects per 100 members of teaching staff, the five universities that occupy the top positions are the UPF, the UC3M, the UAM, the UB and the University of Lleida (UDL, in its Spanish acronym). For international research projects within the European Union’s Framework Programme per 100 members of teaching staff, the UPF, the UC3M, the UAB, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC, in its Spanish acronym), and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM, in its Spanish acronym) stand out.

Innovation, training, and attracting research talent

In the field of innovation, performance is addressed in aspects such as patents or revenue derived from R&D work with companies. In terms of the number of national patents, as in previous editions of the Observatory, the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), followed by the University of Seville (US, in its Spanish acronym), and the Valencia Polytechnic University (UPV, in its Spanish acronym) stand out. In relation to performance, when calculated based on the number of teaching staff, the University of Burgos (UBU, in its Spanish acronym) and the UC3M appear in the top positions in 2019. In terms of revenue generated by R&D contracts and consultations per 100 members of teaching staff, the highest values correspond to two Madrid universities, the Alcalá University (UAH, in its Spanish acronym) and the UC3M, two Catalan universities, the UB and Rovira i Virgili University (URV, in its Spanish acronym), and the University of Cantabria (UC, in its Spanish acronym).

In the area of formative capacity and talent attraction, indicators such as the number of doctoral theses per 100 members of teaching staff are analysed and institutions such as the UAB, the UAM, the University of Girona (UdG, in its Spanish acronym), the UPF, and the URV stand out. For FPU contracts (grants for training university teaching staff) per 100 members of teaching staff, the University of Granada (UGR, in its Spanish acronym) stands out, followed by the University of Almería (UAL, in its Spanish acronym), the University of Córdoba (UCO, in its Spanish acronym), the University of Málaga (UMA, in its Spanish acronym), and the UV. In terms of FPI contracts (predoctoral grants for training doctoral students), the five public universities with the highest ratings in 2019 are the UPF, the UC3M, the UAM, the URV, and the UB. For Juan de la Cierva contracts per 100 members of teaching staff, the UPF, the UC3M, the UAM, the UdG, and the University of La Rioja stand out, while for Ramón y Cajal contracts per 100 members of teaching staff, the five universities with the highest ratings in 2019 are the UPF, the UAM, the UB, the UAM, and the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC, in its Spanish acronym).

The IUNE Observatory is currently supported by the Spanish Ministry of Universities, as well as by a large number of institutions, such as the Spanish National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA, in its Spanish acronym), the Conference of Spanish University Presidents (CRUE, in its Spanish acronym), the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI, in its Spanish acronym), the Agency for Quality of the Catalan University System (AQU Catalunya), and the Agency for Quality of the Basque University System (Unibasq).

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This technological device is fitted into accessories worn by the user and identifies situations of threat by means of physiological variables such as heart rate, temperature and skin conductance, and physical variables such as voice changes or sounds from the surrounding environment. The system analyses these variables in real time and, if it determines that a situation is dangerous, sends alerts and requests for help to a previously defined circle of people.

The device was developed by UC3M4Safety, a multidisciplinary team focused on detecting, preventing and combating violence against women. The team consists of UC3M researchers Clara Luis Mingueza, José Carlos Robredo García, José Miranda Calero, Maria Ángeles Blanco Ruiz and Manuel Felipe Canabal Benito.

About Explorer UC3M Space

Explorer UC3M Space is an initiative aimed at supporting entrepreneurship within the framework of Banco Santander's Explorer programme "Jóvenes con Ideas" (“Young People with Ideas”). The aim is to inspire and promote start-ups, providing the young people involved with connections to help with the internationalisation of their projects and their pursuit of funding. This year, the percentage of women who took part in the Explorer UC3M Space programme was 54 percent, the highest percentage of all the programme's editions to date. 

More information on the programme

In this game genre, the player has a running avatar which they have to use to avoid different obstacles in their way. “In our game, the avatar is a raccoon that has to jump in order to avoid falling into the holes it will encounter on its route,” explains David Delgado Gómez, the lead author and professor at the UC3M’s Department of Statistics. 

“We hypothesise that children diagnosed with ADHD inattentive subtype will make more mistakes by omission and will jump closer to the hole as a result of the symptoms of inattention,” says Inmaculada Peñuelas Calvo, another author of the study, psychiatrist at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation University Hospital and professor at the UCM’s Department of Personality, Evaluation and Clinical Psychology.

The main benefit of this study is that it allows symptoms of attention deficit to be directly identified, so that the severity of the patient’s inattention can be objectively assessed, say the researchers. Therefore, it could be used to supplement the initial diagnosis as well as to assess the evolution of symptoms or even the effectiveness of treatment.

There are also other important advantages, such as the fact that each test would only take 7 minutes to complete and does not require specific hardware, which reduces its cost significantly. In fact, conventional personal computers, tablets, or mobile devices can be used, allowing remote assessments to be done. “Our results indicate that a shorter test may be enough to accurately assess the clinical symptoms of ADHD. This feature makes it particularly attractive in clinical settings where there is a lack of time,” the researchers note. 

A rapid test that allows early diagnosis

The study was carried out in collaboration with a group of 32 children, between the ages of 8 and 16, diagnosed with ADHD by the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit in the Psychiatry Department at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation University Hospital. As each child was taking the test, supervised by a trained professional, the appropriate caregiver completed the inattention subscale in the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and normal behaviour symptom classification scale (SWAN), which is an inventory of reports from parents and caregivers developed to evaluate ADHD symptoms.

In the game, the raccoon has to jump over 180 holes that are grouped into 18 blocks. “Each block is identified by the speed of the raccoon, the length of the trunk, and the width of the hole. The length of the trunk and the speed of the avatar determine the time between stimuli, which is about 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 seconds, while the width of the hole determines how difficult it is to jump over,” Inmaculada Peñuelas explains.

Currently, ADHD diagnosis depends mainly on the healthcare professionals’ experience and the teacher or caregiver’s observation skills. Several studies have determined that these assessments may be altered, by affective factors for example. Therefore, “the development of diagnostic methods such as those proposed in this paper may favour early diagnosis and thus improve these patients’ prognosis”, David Delgado Gómez concludes.

Researchers from the Rey Juan Carlos University, the Autonomous University of Madrid, CIBER Mental Health, and the Puerta de Hierro Majadahonda University Hospital, as well as the UC3M and the UCM, took part in this research.

Bibliography: 

Delgado-Gómez, D.; Sújar, A.; Ardoy-Cuadros, J.; Bejarano-Gómez, A.; Aguado, D.; Miguelez-Fernandez, C.; Blasco-Fontecilla, H.; Peñuelas-Calvo, I. Objective Assessment of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Using an Infinite Runner-Based Computer Game: A Pilot Study. Brain Sci. 2020, 10, 716.

Version fran?aise (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

For example, when we watch a reality show on television, we are aware of the fact that we are facing a process of mediation, of representation, and we feel it as something external. However, when we use Facebook or WhatsApp we have somehow lost the notion of being in front of a sort of spectacle, even though the mediation process is exactly the same. “There is a naturalisation of representation which is very dangerous, as it also involves a loss of critical distance”, says Pilar Carrera.

According to the researcher, if we examine our relationship with mass media screens and interfaces during the 20th century up to the present day, we can easily see how the trend has been a sustained and progressive reduction in physical and symbolic distance,  as well  as  an increasing sophistication in forms of control through mass media technology that have penetrated the individual’s private and intimate spaces.

“When cinema began, it was consumed in public theatres. The screen made its way into our homes (a private space) with the arrival of television. The internet is the first medium that has directly entered the intimate space. This trend has accelerated during the COVID crisis”, Pilar Carrera explained. “This pandemic has been virtually filtered through a single medium: the internet. This has produced a monumental discursive deficit because its entire narrative has reached us almost exclusively via this media".

The impact of lockdown

The lockdown brought about by COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented restriction of public freedom in countries with a long-standing democratic tradition, combined with the generalisation of legitimate and compelling digital surveillance undertaken in the name of ‘public interest’, especially through smartphones, according to this paper. “It is the perfect example of encapsulated privacy and tightly controlled media, accompanied by large, extensive and frenetic use of the internet as the only window that is ‘open to the outside world’ and the only means of contact as vicarious as it is frustrating with the other”, Pilar Carrera noted.

In a nutshell, the COVID-19 crisis has allowed us to grasp the true scope of the internet in terms of social control and engineering, after decades of the public adapting, internalising, and adopting this communication network en masse. “In this perfect storm, where two viral environments (the internet and COVID-19) have collided, the structural links between the internet and socio-political isolation have become apparent,” she concluded.

Bibliography: 

Carrera, Pilar (2020). Digital interiors. The Internet Housing Policies. Meet the Age of Confinement. EU-topías. A Journal on Interculturality, Communication, and European Studies, Vol. 19, pp. 5-18. DOI: 10.7203/eutopias.19.17870 -

Version fran?aise (French version)

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Economy, climate change and emissions 

The project is called “Climate change and economic challenges in Spanish society” (CC-ECHASS) and is being presented by Esther Ruiz, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Statistics. It aims to analyse the effects of climate change on the economy and financial sector, using advanced quantitative methods, in particular, insurance coverage and bank exposures in Spain based on different extreme risk scenarios. Climate risk assessment is based on probability predictions of climate variables (temperatures, precipitation, CO2 emissions) observed at extreme intervals (minimum and maximum, which is where the biggest risks are found). In addition to this, measuring the uncertainty of these predictions allows probabilities to be assigned to possible future scenarios, so the economic effects of climate change in different scenarios will be assessed. Measuring uncertainty in predictions is important for making well-informed decisions.

“The socio-economic impacts of low-emission zones” (URBAN_SKIES) is the name of the project being presented by Natalia Fabra, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Economics, which will focus on investigating the long-term socio-economic effects of low-emission zones (LEZ). It will examine, in particular, whether these areas are effective enough to change the composition of a fleet of vehicles with the incorporation of cleaner vehicles, change habits in favour of shared mobility options and enhance economic activity within restricted areas. To do so, the project will use high frequency and hyperlocal data (vehicle registration data, car and bicycle sharing, bank card transactions, socio-demographic profiles, etc.) to analyse the socio-economic impacts of LEZs in Madrid and Barcelona from the perspective of the most modern econometric techniques. It aims to contribute to the debate about two important global socio-economic issues; the design of environmental policies and the future of cities.

In each of the five weeks up to December the 4th, four online lectures will be held in the different universities that are part of the YUFE. To attend,you will need to register through the .

This cycle of virtual talks begins today, November the 3rd, with an online lecture taking place at the UC3M. The lecture is entitled “A community in progress? The dynamics of European identification in times of global crises”, and will be delivered by Dr.Aleksandra Sojka, a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral researcher at the UC3M’s Department of Social Sciences. Dr. Sojka will also give a second presentation on November the 5th, on the same topic. These sessions, conducted through English, seek to address the issue of European identity from different points of view in order to critically examine the role that identities play in current European Union policy.

YUFE members

The YUFE is an alliance of ten young universities which are leaders in research and teaching and whose objective is to create a truly student-centred, open and inclusive European university. Based on cooperation between higher education institutions and the public and private sectors, the alliance seeks to contribute to a more diverse, effective and equitable educational system at European and global level.

The YUFE consists of the universities of: Antwerp (Belgium), Bremen (Germany), Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), Cyprus, Essex (England), Eastern Finland, Maastricht (Netherlands), Nicolaus Copernicus of Toruń (Poland), Rijeka (Croatia) and Tor Vergataof Rome (Italy). In addition, collaborating partners include Educational Testing Service Global, European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME, Kiron Open Higher Education for Refugees and the Adecco France group.

More information at: 

In Arts and Humanities, the UC3M is ranked amongst the 400 best universities on an international level, according to WSR 2021 Arts and Humanities of the THE, while it ranks in the top 500 for Computer Science, according to the WSR 2021 Computer Science.

The University also holds notable positions in Social Sciences (WSR 2021 Social Sciences) and Engineering (WSR 2021 Engineering), being placed within the top 600 worldwide. In addition, the UC3M also holds an outstanding position worldwide (in the Top 800) in Physical Sciences, according to WSR 2021 Physical Sciences.

This classification by subject uses the same methodology as the THE’s World University Rankings. To do this, they analyse thirteen performance indicators in five important fields: teaching, research, scientific reunions, international impact, and the university’s relationship with industry.  The methodology has been recalibrated to adapt to the different academic fields analysed.

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The average age of the 59 grant holders selected in this call is 38.5 years old. In terms of the geographical distribution of the work centres, they are divided among 13 autonomous communities: 17 have been awarded to residents in Madrid, 11 in Catalonia, 10 in Andalusia, 5 in the Basque Country and Galicia, and the rest are distributed among Aragon, the Canary Islands, Castile-La Mancha, Castile and León, the Valencian Community, Murcia, and La Rioja.

Projects from the UC3M

Miguel Artola Blanco is a Postdoctoral researcher “Juan de la Cierva” at the UC3M’s Department of Social Sciences. His research project seeks to open up a new perspective into the study of the Interwar period by exploring the relationship between inequality and the triumph (or failure) of democracies. He is researching three countries (Spain, the United States and France) with different trajectories and who had different experiences of solutions during this period. The research focuses on the middle and working classes, understanding that they were key actors in the changes that occurred in these decades. It aims to connect three areas that have been studied separately thus far: the economic changes that these groups experienced, the stability (or bankruptcy) of each of these political regimes, and the new institutional framework of social and labour policies.

Stefano Discetti is aLecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Bioengineering and Aerospace Engineering. His research focuses on techniques for improving the aerodynamic efficiency of methods of transport, which are responsible for approximately 29% of the total CO2 emissions generated by humans. Given that a large percentage of the energy needed to travel is due to aerodynamic resistance, his project proposes tapping into advances in Artificial Intelligence in order to achieve real-time closed loop control of aerodynamic flows. The research will consist of two parts: a theoretical study and computational simulations of learning techniques for their application in fluid mechanics and adapting these automatic learning strategies to experimental environments.

Eva Herrero Curiel is a Lecturer of Journalism at the UC3M’s Department of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication. Her research project will study how teachers in secondary and further education in Spain work with their students from the perspective of the media: what they teach them, the methodology they use, and their perceptions of the students’ use of media and social media. Once the information has been collected, proposals will be made to implement actions within curricula that will help promote media literacy among students in order to foster a more critical thinking and consumption of media and the information they generate. According to international studies, 64% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 around the world consider digital media (including social media) their main source of information.

Violeta Ruiz Almendral is a Lecturer of Financial and Tax Law at the UC3M’s Department of Public State Law. Her project aims to investigate the constitutional system of distributing powers between the state, autonomous communities, and local bodies in terms of financial and tax matters, considering the current model designed by the Spanish Constitution and integration into the European Union, as well as its evolution in practice. The research will analyse the dynamic functioning of the constitutional system of territorial financing, and the implications the system has on financial powers - both those relating to income (taxes and duties) as well as expenses (flows that make up the local and regional financing systems) and examining the main judicial questions raised through an examination of disputes,mainly in the courts (Court of Justice of the European Communities and Constitutional Court).

The project, in addition to locating the scenes, analyzes them according to their length, revealing Gran Via as the street with the most cinematographic presence, followed by Cibeles, the Plaza Mayor and the Puerta de Alcala. However, certain changes can be perceived over time:  as new urban spaces have been created, the number of these film settings have diminished. “As the city has grown, attention has shifted to other areas, also due to cinema’s commitment to narrating different stories.  With “Cine Quinqui” (Petty Thief Cinema) in the 1970’s, and later as of the 2000’s, the city’s periphery began to be represented from a more social perspective, and accordingly other small icons emerged, such as the area of “Las Colmenas”  (The Beehives)  in Ciudad Lineal, constituting a symbol of the peripheral city,” pointed out by Paula Bordonada, PhD student in the UC3M Department of Communication.

“Film conditions the collective imagination associated with geographic space, but also contributes to giving unknown or lesser-known urban or natural locales greater visibility, so that they become known to the populace. This generates a different kind of link between residents and their communities fomenting niche tourism, and in some way it can serve as an incentive for its maintenance or improvement,” explained the Geocine principal investigator, Carlos Manuel Valdés, professor in the UC3M Department of Humanities, History, Geography and Art. 

The research team has worked with more than 300 films and identified and georeferenced more than 2,000 scenes which are the source for the web map viewer included in the project webpage. To locate films shot in the Madrid Regional Community, they use information published by IMDb, film offices and specialized bibliography along with full viewing of the films.  “The inventory depends a good deal on the film’s repercussions, information provided by the production teams or the date of shooting, so that quite often we see new films being added,” Valdés concluded.

Currently, the research group is examining the presence of other Spanish cities in audiovisual fiction and undertaking specific studies, such as analyzing Spanish movies filmed in the Lavapiés neighborhood throughout history, or how specific settings, such as the Plaza de Cascorro and Ribera de Curtidores street, are established as symbols of the neighborhood itself and of the traditional and authentic Madrid.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

This kind of formula allows to introduce the rhetoric and effects of documentary and informative discourses into the territory of fiction. In fact, in the case of documentaries there is, in terms of meaning, one more turn of the screw, presupposing not only that the story being told is based on real events, but that this is directly the reality: "This is obviously a false assumption; in a documentary there is as much mise en scene than in fiction and the rhetorical mechanisms used to generate effects of truth should not be confused with a supposed pre-discursive truth," indicates Pilar Carrera.

The fictional story that is said to be "based on true events" supports the discourse on values characteristic of fiction with the effect of documentary truth ("factual truth"), the book notes. All of this is done without assuming the responsibilities or potential sanctions that come with the assumption of true-saying in documentary or informational terms: the 'based on’ or 'inspired in’ introduce a nuance that presupposes the possibility of inaccuracy or a margin for 'free interpretation' and 'error'. In short, it suggests that something is true and, at the same time, that if it is not, nothing happens, since, in the end, it is a fiction.

In recent times we see a progressive shift from fiction to the rhetorical space of the documentary, according to Carrera. This goes far beyond the classic use of fragments of documentaries, reports, newsreels or photographs in fiction films to give them a plus of verisimilitude. "The formula 'based on actual facts' affects the reception of fiction as a whole and its political and cultural dimension without the need to resort to archival material," she says in the essay.

Many series are adopting a documentary look, as it is the case of Chernobyl (HBO, 2019), in which the search for a systematic confusion between fiction and document is evident to the extent that the series is presented as follows: Based on an untold true story. "Although a fiction, Chernobyl is consumed, in many ways, as a documentary. Probably, when people see it, they think they are knowing the truth about what happened, when, in reality, we are dealing with an extremely conventional story in terms of narrative and with limited value in terms of historical understanding," says Pilar Carrera.

The ideological and political effects of this type of fictional historical account should not be underestimated, according to the essay, because of its ability to shape the social imaginary. "Fiction, and especially serial fiction, to which a large part of the population dedicates a great amount of time that directly prevents or substantially reduces the consumption of other kind of stories, is very powerful, generating emotional attachment and, as a consequence, adherence to the thesis that underlies the interpretation of the events being undertaken and which is intended to be concealed by appealing to 'actual facts'," the essay concludes.

In the book "Based on true events", Carrera analyzes other issues that are framed in what she calls "society without spectacle". In this context, topics such as the emergence of the fake, post-truth, the relations between discourse and action, as well as other aspects –the relations between photography and politics, the dominant discourses on Europe or on motherhood– are dealt with. Ultimately, its aim is to show, from different angles, the logic on which the digital imaginary is forged and its implications for the individual, the citizen and the functioning of democracy.

Bibliographical reference: Carrera, Pilar (2020). Basado en hechos reales: mitologías mediáticas e imaginario digital, Ediciones Cátedra, Colección +Media, Madrid, Spain. ISBN: 978-84-376-4102-7

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

In addition to official university Master’s degrees, the UC3M offers many of its own degrees through its School of Continuing Education. This offer of studies is fundamentally composed of the university’s own Master’s and expert and specialist degrees, in addition to other courses, diplomas and seminars.

As updates for the new academic year, the UC3M announces three new own degrees: Master’s in Fashion Image: Styling and Audiovisual Media VOGUE-UC3M; UC3M-Diagonal TV Master’s in Creation of Fictional Series for Television; and Specialist in Art Market Law.

Enrolment periods

The second admission period is currently open (until the 31st of March) for enrolment on the official university Master’s courses for the academic year 2020/21, as well as the request period for any of the 174 grants awarded for the payment of Master’s registration. Afterwards, there will be a third registration period, from the 1st of April, for degrees with available places.

The UC3M offers a wide variety of higher training programmes. Overall, more than 60 official Master’s courses are taught in the branches of Law, Economics and Political Science, Business, Humanities and Communication and Engineering and Basic Sciences and more than 50 of its own programmes. Around 10 per cent of the programmes are bilingual and around 20 per cent are taught in English.

The UC3M is a Spanish public university that stands out in teaching, research and innovation. It ranks 34th on a global level in the QS Top 50 Under 50 Ranking and is included in the Times Higher Education (THE) 150 Under 50. It is the top university in Spain and third in Europe for the number of students undertaking the Erasmus Programme and holds more than 870 agreements with universities from 56 countries, among which some of the best universities in the world, according to ShanghaiRankings’ Academic Ranking of World Universities, can be found. 35% of postgraduate students at the UC3M are international students. The UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality distinctions, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of Engineering, AMBA accreditation in its MBA and the prestigious AACSB international accreditation in the Business and Finance programmes, among others.

For more information:

UC3M School of Postgraduate Studies website

Climate change research

The UC3M is conducting various research projects related to the fight against climate change. The Sociology of Climate Change and Sustainable Development research group is studying the relationship between social activities and climate change, analysing socio-political and economic trends and proposing strategies for mitigation and adaptation, for example. At the “Pascual Madoz” Institute of Land, Urban Planning and the Environment, they are conducting a line of research related to land planning, environmental management and the climate. The UC3M has recently launched the Energy and Environment Economics Laboratory, EnergyEcolab, to carry out quality research on issues related to energy and environment economics and, in particular, on the design of policies to stimulate the energy transition towards low carbon economies.

At the UC3M’s Higher Polytechnic School, numerous R&D projects related to the climate are also being conducted. The Experimental Mechanics, Calculation and Transportation (MECATRAN) research group is carrying out environmental, recycling and waste management studies, as well as in traffic engineering. In the Infrared Remote Sensing and Imaging Sensors Laboratory, they are investigating and innovating regarding the use of infrared technology for the detection of gases from traffic or from leaks in industrial environments. The Power Control research group is developing electrical power systems in the field of renewable energies, an area in which the Electrical Power Networks and Systems research group is also working, where the integration of renewable energies into the electrical system and market is being analysed. For its part, the Suitable Technologies for Sustainable Development Group is investigating passive solar systems, photovoltaic-wind electrification and biodigestion, while the Thermal Engineering, Energy and Atmosphere research group is studying energy recovery and sustainability technologies and the reduction of atmospheric emissions from machines and thermal engines, among other aspects. Finally, in the Energy Systems Engineering research group, renewable energies such as thermal solar energy or thermochemical processes of solid fuels (such as gasification and biomass combustion) are being analysed.

The UC3M also participates in various European research projects related to environmental issues within Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Research and Innovation Framework Programme. As part of the , scientists from the University are investigating hyperspectral techniques for the detection of polluting emissions from the combustion of biomass in industrial processes. In the , the UC3M has created a “science shop” focused on environmental issues, a format that aims to create spaces for intermediation between the scientific community and the general public. The European Research Council (ERC) has funded two UC3M projects related to environmental issues under H2020: the objective of the ELECTRIC CHALLENGES project is to analyse the design of regulatory instruments that minimise the costs of energy transition towards low carbon economies; the RIVERS project has obtained funding from the ERC in order to generate innovative knowledge at the University with regard to human rights in relation to different ways of relating to water by indigenous groups.

Climate and responsible consumption actions

The UC3M is committed to incorporating the objectives and values ??of sustainable development in a transversal manner in all its actions. During 2019, the University has focused on – among others - SDGs 12 (Responsible production and consumption) and 13 (Climate action), which relate to some of the topics that are being discussed at the Madrid Climate Summit (COP25).

In relation to SDG 12, the UC3M has collaborated with the Madrid City Council to promote the city's sustainable food strategy (within the framework of the Milan Pact). Furthermore, it has promoted the use of reusable cups and compostable containers in the cafeterias of the University to replace disposable containers, in addition to making progress as regards the responsible management of waste generated on campus.

In relation to SDG 13, “Climate action”, the UC3M has conducted environmental awareness campaigns aimed at the university community, focused on saving water, energy consumption and reducing the consumption of single-use containers and plastic bottles. These containers are in the process of being replaced with glasses and glass jugs and water fountains have been installed in the campus buildings to promote the use of reusable bottles.

In recent years, another set of actions related to sustainability have been undertaken, encouraging changes so as to promote a more sustainable energy consumption. For example, the interior and exterior light fittings have been replaced by LED technology and more energy efficient equipment. In addition, sustainable mobility has been promoted with the installation of parking lots for electric motorcycles and bicycles, places for recharging electric vehicles and others for use by shared vehicles. In addition, on the Getafe and Leganés campuses there are stations for the respective municipal bicycle rental services.

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which is recognised for its teaching, research and innovation. It ranks 34th worldwide in the QS ranking of the 50 best universities in the world under 50 and is included in the Times Higher Education (THE) 150 Under 50. It ranks first among universities in Spain and third in Europe for the number of students participating in the Erasmus programme and it has more than 870 agreements with universities in 56 countries, among which are some of the best in the world according to the Shanghai University Ranking. 20% of UC3M students are international. UC3M has received numerous quality accreditations and awards, such as the EUR-ACE label in the field of engineering and the AACSB accreditation in business and finance courses, among others.

UC3M projects

César Huetes Ruiz de Lira is a tenured lecturer in Thermal and Fluid Engineering at UC3M. His project aims to give new impetus to the development of nuclear fusion energy as a means to achieve a potentially inexhaustible source of safe and environmentally friendly energy. In this way, it will seek to develop a theoretical model that allows us to overcome the high inefficiency of current strategies for achieving nuclear fusion. In short, the project seeks to identify the optimal conditions necessary to make use of fusion energy in a more efficient and sustainable manner.

Pedro Peris López is a tenured lecturer in the Department of Informatics at UC3M. His project (CARDIOSEC) aims to design cyber-security solutions for the new generations of Implantable Cardiac Devices (ICDs), such as pacemakers and defibrillators. In 2001, wireless connectivity was incorporated into ICDs with the result that these devices can now be monitored remotely while the patient is at home. However, and this is where CARDIOSEC would be very useful, it is crucial that we ensure that only authorised entities can access this monitoring and protect communications against unauthorised listening via the radio channel.

Pedro Riera Sagrera is a lecturer in Political Science at UC3M. His project seeks to investigate the partisan impacts of electoral systems from a comparative perspective. It aims to study the effect of the different types of electoral regulations on the greater or lesser successes of the various political parties depending on their ideology. It will also address the concept of partisan bias whereby most electoral systems tend not to be neutral, with certain political parties being over-represented, as far as seats are concerned, even in the case of a hypothetical percentage balance of votes obtained by each of them.

To do so, two large interrelated research streams are designed. Firstly, they will analyse the different ways the indigenous people have of knowing and relating to water, as well as studying the potential violation of the right to water on the part of extractive projects. And secondly, they will discuss the main challenges, difficulties and interlegal translation contributions of the diverse natures of water at national and international level.

In this sense they will develop a multi-situated analysis, including empirical case studies, in three contexts: Colombia, Nepal and the United Nations system of human rights protection which recognised water as a human right in 2010. “RIVERS focuses on Colombia and Nepal as both countries are perceived as the regional examples with the most legal development in terms of human rights protection of indigenous people. In addition, on the local level in both countries, indigenous communities are faced with the successive dispossession of land and systematic violations of human rights by internal armed conflicts and extractive projects”, explains Lieselotte Viaene.

To what extent is our way of understanding and relating to water important? According to the researchers, water has traditionally been viewed in two ways: as a natural resource within a neo-liberal economic model or as a human right that should be legally protected. At present, conflicts over water around the world and the climate emergency are emphasising challenge these ways we understand and relate to water. For example, rivers in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Ecuador, India and New Zealand have recently obtained the status of living entities with legal personhood. In addition, worldwide indigenous people are mobilising against the neo-liberalisation of nature, claiming alternative ways of relating to it. 

The international law of human rights has given an increasing recognition of indigenous people as subjects of individual and collective rights. “Ultimately, the main question of RIVERS is to what extent the international human rights law can come to grips with these plurilegal realities of water”, emphasises Lieselotte Viaene. RIVERS also interacts with key space of international human rights norm production of the United Nations - such as the Human Rights Council - with the aim of researching the encounter between the indigenous knowledge and complaints with respect to water and the dominant legal visions of human rights (with Eurocentric liberal and positivist roots). In addition, the project will examine the impact and limitations of the work of the indigenous international experts as diplomats of inter-cultural knowledge, for example the the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.

The current rapporteur attended the presentation of the project that took place last Friday in the Aula Magna on the UC3M’s Getafe Campus, in which various indigenous researchers and leaders from Colombia, Nepal and Finland took part. The RIVERS project - Water/human rights beyond the human? Indigenous water ontologies, plurilegal encounters and interlegal translation -, is provided with finance of, approximately, one and a half million Euros and will be developed between 2019 and 2024. The ERC finances the Starting Grant aids within Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Programme of Research and Innovation. The objective is for young researchers (with post-doctorate experience of between 2 and 7 years) with innovative ideas, to become leaders of research groups whose activity is on the knowledge border of any subject.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Además, trata de realizar un estudio sistemático de los mecanismos que explican la relación entre el tipo de sistema electoral y los efectos partidistas, como podrían ser las desviaciones en el prorrateo, las diferencias en la participación, las disparidades de la eficiencia en la traducción de votos en escaños, etc.

En la XVIII convocatoria de estas ayudas se han seleccionado 12 nuevos proyectos de investigación de 9 universidades españolas: Autónoma de Madrid, Carlos III de Madrid  Complutense de Madrid, Granada, Islas Baleares, País Vasco, Pompeu Fabra, Zaragoza y la Universidad a Distancia de Madrid.

The research is based on the hypothesis that everyday moral beliefs are used in a tribal manner to define "what our group is and with what individuals we do not wish to join up". The study, which also involved the researchers Antonio Gaitán Torres, from the UC3M, and Ivar Rodríguez-Hannikainen, from the Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), was based on a survey conducted in Spain between the 23rd of October and the 13th of November, 2018. By the end of that period, 1055 panellists had responded to the survey.

The survey included questions concerning the participants’ identification with the main political parties, as well as blocks of questions relating to various issues on the public agenda. It also included a series of questions concerning the extent to which they would like to have someone who sympathised with parties they felt more or less of a kinship with as a neighbour, as a teacher of their children, as the spouse of a relative or as a boss in their workplace.

According to the results of the survey, those who believe that their moral opinions are objectively correct tend to discriminate more against those who have different political sympathies. This "moral absolutism", as defined by the authors, causes a significant sector of the population to assume that in the matter of moral or political disagreements only one of the parties can be right. "There is a significant correlation between those who believe that their moral opinions are objective or absolute and those who are most intolerant of the members of the political party with which they sympathise the least. It would be desirable to promote activities that would help to minimise these trends, although this is an area which still needs to be explored," explains Antonio Gaitán, lecturer at the Department of Humanities: Philosophy, Language and Literature at the UC3M. 

The study also found that there is a disconnect between how we perceive our disagreements with those who have different political sympathies. "We imagine our political opponents more radical and dogmatic than they are. Perhaps, by combating this exaggerated perception of our differences we can alleviate the tension in which we live", says from the Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro.

Bibliographic reference

The Dual Nature of Partisan Prejudice: Morality and Identity in a Multiparty System. Hugo Viciana, Ivar R. Hannikainen, Antonio Gaitán Torres. PLOS ONE

This international classification assesses the quality of higher education by means of 14 performance indicators based on four basic categories: engagement (the connection of the university with its students, their interactions, their satisfaction with the institution and its links with the labour market) , resources (the ratio between lecturers and students, the scientific productivity of the teaching staff as regards their publications and the quality of the services), results obtained (the reputation of the courses, skills development and the graduation rate) and learning environment (the gender balance among students and academic staff, the proportion of international students and Erasmus mobility).

The data used to draw up this ranking come from various sources: the universities themselves, their websites, bibliometric databases, reputation surveys, official statistical institutes and ministerial bodies from the different countries.

The THE Teaching Ranking 2019 was presented at the THE Europe Student Success Forum 2019, an event held in Madrid on the 4th-5th of July, which brings together various industry and higher education leaders to discuss the best ideas and initiatives to contribute to the success of students.

More information:

The evolution of Public Spending on University Education (obtained from the historic sets of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training) shows that university education grew at an average annual rate of 1.47% in the period between 2003 and 2010. Since then, the growth rate has been decreasing, standing at 0.93% for the decade from 2006 to 2015 (IUNE2017). In both the previous and the current editions of the IUNE Review – in the middle of the economic crisis - negative growth has been reported, down to an average of -1.16% per year in the current edition (IUNE2019).

As for human resources, the number of lecturers grew at an average annual rate of 1.47% in the decade from 2003 to 2012, compared with 0.71% in the decade from 2008 to 2017. The same trend is reported in the SUE publications gathered in the Web of Science (WoS) database, which show a decrease of more than three percentage points in the annual growth rate between the first and most recent decades analysed (8.73% versus 5.3%).

In terms of productivity, average annual growth per decade has also decreased (from the 7.15% per year reported in IUNE 14 to 4.55% in the current edition), although the number of papers per lecturer has grown steadily over the years, from 0.39 papers per lecturer in 2003 to 0.85 in 2017. "This may be due to the plateauing as regards the number of lecturers compared to the growth in the number of publications," the authors of the report explain.

Annual growth in the number of papers published as international collaborations fell two percentage points between the first and most recent decades analysed, from 10.87% to 8.73%. The impact indicator has also been affected, since the number of papers published in first-quartile journals (the most prestigious in each field) has decreased by four points, from a previous growth rate of 10.71% to the current rate of 6.52%.

Publications by subject field

The sixth edition of the IUNE Observatory includes  the activity of public and private Spanish universities during the period from 2008 to 2017. Broadly speaking, this look back at the last six years reports shows that the Spanish University System (SUE) is becoming progressively weaker as regards the most significant indicators of scientific activity, such as the evolution of public spending on university education and the dedicated human resources, among others.

The most active subject field is that of the Experimental Sciences, which publishes 37.36% of the SUE total, followed by Medicine and Pharmacology with 29.97%. An analysis of the evolution of the different subject fields shows that those that showed most significant growth were Arts and Humanities with 185.03%, followed by Social Sciences with 133.38%.

In terms of the Autonomous Communities, Catalonia was once again the most productive, with a total of 120,141 publications (25.48% of the SUE total). It is followed by the Community of Madrid with 19.86% of the SUE output, and Andalusia with 16.08%.

A total of 4,936 patents were granted by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM in the Spanish acronym) in the ten years between 2008 and 2017, with a cumulative average growth of 5.29%, down from the previous decade’s 7.37%.

In terms of attracting talent, Spanish universities have lost 25.68% of their Ramón y Cajal contracts, although Juan de la Cierva contracts have increased by 37.57%.

The number of FPU (University Teacher Training) contracts fell from 3,384 in 2008 to 594 in 2009, a decrease of 82.4%. Since then average annual growth has been 1.85%, with 688 contracts in 2017, which represents a fall of 79.66% compared to 2008. As regards FPI (Research Staff Training) contracts, the total for the period numbers 6,299, falling from 652 in 2008 to 624 in 2017, a decrease of 4.29%. The average since 2013 is around 593 scholarships/annual contracts.

Full report:

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

Social gambling activities managed by the private sector attracted smaller numbers: 19.4% of the population between 18 and 75 years old. Almost 2 million visited a casino, 3 million a bingo hall and another 3 million visited a gambling hall. Their customers are divided into two large groups, the study explains. On the one hand, sporadic players who attend out of curiosity and other regular players who use it as a hobby, but also because these places provide spaces to meet with friends and to meet people with whom they can start a conversation based on the games.

On-site sports betting attracts 1.5 million customers, while the Quiniela (Spanish football pools) gets 2.5 million customers, who tend to regularly buy a weekly ticket. “They are betting games for soccer fans, men under 35, basically. With fluctuations: the Quiniela shows a descending profile. This cannot solely be attributed to sports betting, but to the change to the scheduling of La Liga matches which makes it impossible for fans to enjoy the matches on Sunday afternoon, something which was an essential part of La Quiniela,” José Antonio Gómez Yáñez points out.

Online gambling

In relation to Internet gambling, almost 1.5 million people participated at least once in 2018. In this case, it is a group with disjointed behavioural patterns: from those who play regularly to those who only do so out of curiosity (taking advantage of the bonuses offered by the websites) and those who only play at a particular time during the year (basically betting on a particular match). To be precise, there are only 300,000 individuals who gamble in a regular fashion on the Internet, which represents less than 1% of the population between 18 and 75 years old.

“The data from our study indicate a gradual settling down as regards online gambling. The gambling sessions are shorter: half an hour, according to answers from the interviewees; monthly expenditure is moderate, there are decreases in the numbers participating in certain games, etc. The overall indication is that fans have learned how to use it and they rationalise its use,” say the authors of the report.

Figures relating to problem gambling

For the first time, information relating to cases of treatment for gambling addiction has been systematised, based on data from the Ministry of Health, which in turn comes from the health systems of the autonomous communities. The number is below 7,000, which is equivalent to 0.02% of the population between 18 and 75 years old. If you take as a reference the number of people who gambled during 2018 in casinos, bingo halls or gambling halls, or who bet or played on machines in the hospitality sector, it is 0.1%.

The problematic gambling index in Spain amounts to 0.2% of the population between 18 and 75 years old at the beginning of 2019, if it is measured using the PGSI questionnaire, or 0.3% when measured with the DSM-IV. These figures are convergent with those published by other sources during 2018, such as the Health Department of the Basque Government (0.2%) or the Ministry of Health with its EDADES (Survey on Alcohol and Other Drugs in Spain) study of people between 15 and 64 years of age (0.3%). According to the report, problematic gambling rates in Spain have been falling for 30 years.

The typical profile of a person with a gambling addiction problem is male, under 35, and middle class. The incidence of problematic gambling among customers of online websites leads to the conclusion that people in this group bet online. Among those who bet online, there is a high correlation between the levels of risk of problematic gambling and the duration of online gambling sessions. Based on these data, the focus of public policies to prevent problematic gambling “should be oriented to precisely targeted policies rather than to extensive actions aimed at broad sectors (youth, women, etc.), in which these extensive and indiscriminate campaigns could arouse curiosity rather than caution, especially among young people,” the authors of the report point out.

The tenth annual edition of this study (previously published under the title "Social Perception of Gambling in Spain") provides information on the different types of gambling that exist in Spain, the different profiles of gamblers, their use habits and other particular figures related to problematic gambling. The study was conducted using data from two surveys: one conducted by telephone by IMOP Insights, of 1000 individuals between 18 and 75 years; and another online survey, conducted by NetQuest, of 500 individuals who had gambled online in the two months prior to the consultation.

To answer this question, researchers in the GEMM (Growth, Equal Opportunities, Migration & Markets) Project studied access into employment for young people who were descendants of immigrants in five European countries– Germany, Spain, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Norway -  based on the analysis of the real behavior of more than 19,000 companies. For that purpose, they compared the response the candidates received from the companies analyzed with candidates who had CVs with identical features, but with native-born parents. In this way, the degree of discrimination in each of the countries in the study is estimated.

This represents “the most ambitious research on studies of discrimination when entering the labor market that have been carried out in Europe, and we do it in a comparative way, that is, we make exactly the same design for five European countries,” commented the project head at UC3M, Javier Polavieja, professor in the Department of  Social Sciences.

According to the researchers, the results of the study reveal “the existence of worrying levels of discrimination when accessing employment for children of immigrants in all of the countries analyzed.” In comparative terms, Great Britain and Norway present the highest levels of discrimination, while Spain and Germany present the lowest levels.  Concerning specifically discrimination by phenotype, Spain shows the lowest levels of all the countries analyzed. According to Polavieja, “the results for Spain are especially relevant if we take into account that our country has experienced the most severe economic crisis of all the countries in the study, and furthermore, that the crisis was preceded by the largest increase in the flow of immigration experienced in Europe, this could have led us to expect that Spain would be among the countries that discriminate the most, not the least.”

The results of the study enable us to learn a bit more about the decision-making processes hidden behind discrimination by companies. “It seems that the mechanism behind discrimination is not lack of information, but rather the prejudicial attitudes and stereotypes held by employers, or perhaps their unconscious discriminatory behaviours,” Professor Polavieja explained.

GEMM (Growth, Equal, Opportunities, Migration & Markets) is a project funded by the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program of the European Union (GA 649255) in which more than 30 scientists from eight countries participate. Coordinated by the University of Essex (United Kingdom), it has recently concluded, with the participation of  UC3M together with the following universities and research centers: the Center for Urban and Regional Sociology (CURS), the New Europe Centre for Regional Studies (NEC), Nuffield College-University of Oxford, the University of Amsterdam (UVA), the University of Milan-Bicocca (UNIMIB), the University of Oslo (UIO), Utrecht University (UU) and Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).

Further information:

Versión en chino (Chinese version)

Blockchain, lethal autonomous weapons, human rights of migrants, laws against terrorism and security in the Mediterranean are some of the 20 current topics that will be simulated. It is important to mention that on the 40th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution, Harvard University is going to recreate the Spanish Transition, allowing the participants to find out about one of the most important periods in recent Spanish history.

The United Nations simulation is held every year in one city of the world after applications have been submitted. This event began being held in 1991 in the city of Miedzyzdroje (Poland). Over the last 25 years it has been to cities such as Prague, Luxemburg, Beijing, The Hague and Singapore, with the most recent ones being Rome (2016), Montreal (2017) and Panamá (2018). Until today, WorldMUN has had a total of 55,000 participants. The organising team from Harvard University selected Madrid to hold the 2019 edition.

The “Olympics of Model United Nations”, in Madrid

The city of Madrid’s application was organised by SAMUN (Spanish Alliance for Model United Nations), a non-profit organisation formed of students from the four main public universities of Madrid: the Universidad Autónoma, the Universidad Carlos III, the Universidad Complutense and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.

The team is made up of 17 students from these universities who have voluntarily worked on the application for over two years, along with 104 volunteers from these institutions. At the head of this team is its president, Alba Gavaliugov, a student from Ferrol (Galicia) in her last year of the Dual Bachelor in Law and Political Science, who took part along with president Obama and three Nobel Prizes in the Circular Economy Summit. “For a week, Madrid will become the centre for worldwide young diplomacy. This will be the largest university conference in Europe in 2019 and the most international that has been held in Spain”, confirms Alba Gavaliugov. “Among its participants are the best university students, future leaders in education”, she adds.

Among the 160 universities that will attend the event are Cambridge, Columbia, Harvard, Heidelberg, King's College, London School of Economics, Montreal, MIT, Science-Po, Sorbonne, Stanford, Taiwan, the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education and Yale.

The event is backed by the Royal Household of Spain, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Education, Culture, Sport and Health, Social Affairs and Equality, through the INJUVE (Spanish Youth Institute), as well as the City Council of Madrid, the Community of Madrid and the vice-chancellor’s offices of the four universities that form SAMUN.

The opening ceremony of the 28th edition of the Harvard WorldMUN will take place on Monday 18th March at 16:00 in the Palacio Municipal de Congresos de Madrid. It will also be attended by: King Felipe VI of Spain; the minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Pedro Duque; the president of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Ángel Garrido; and the mayoress of Madrid, Manuela Carmena,and the rector of the UC3M, Juan Romo, among other authorities

For more information:

The device used in classical Greece was made of stone and had a metal tube, which made the process much slower. The new Kleroterion patented by these researchers is transparent, so you can see how the balls fall and know immediately which option has been selected, explains one of the authors of the patent, Roberto Losada, a lecturer from the Social Sciences Department at UC3M.

Another of its advantages is the simplicity of its operation. The device consists of horizontal slots in which each participant inserts an identifying card and a vertical tube with a funnel where balls of different colours are introduced depending on the number of people to be selected. The order in which the balls of each colour fall determines which rows of cards are selected.

"It is a completely random method, unlike other random processes such as those performed by computer applications, which are actually pseudo-random, that is, any future state in which one of them is found is completely determined by its current state" points out another of the authors of the patent, Rubén Sánchez Medero, from the Social Sciences Department at UC3M.

The @FAIR4Health Project Improving Health Research in EU through FAIR Data aims to develop two case studies: one to support the discovery of disease onset triggers and disease association patterns in comorbid patients (presence of one or more conditions, as well as the illness or primary condition); and another to create a prediction service for 30-days readmission risk in complex chronic patients.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 824666 and it is predicted to run for three years. The consortium collaborates with seventeen partners from health research organisations, business entities and universities from eleven countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Holland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.

As well as the UC3M, the partners taking part in this project, led by Virgen del Rocío University Hospital of the Andalusian Health Service, are the following: Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Spain), Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud (Spain), 天美传媒 (Spain), Atos Spain SAE (Spain), University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology (Austria), HL7 Foundation (Belgium), Institut für Medizinische Informatik, Statistik und Epidemiologie - Universität Leipzig KöR (Germany), Academic Medical Center of University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Université de Genève (Switzerland), Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics, University of Braunschweig (Germany), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy), European Federation of Medical Informatics (Switzerland), Digital Curation Centre from University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom), Garrigues (Spain), Software Research and Development Consultancy (Turkey), University of Porto (Portugal), and Institute of Pulmonary Diseases of Vojvodine (Serbia).

On the other hand, the autonomous community in which the most prizes are given out is Castilla y León, with approximately 790 million euro paid out, followed by Catalonia (223 million euro), the Balearic Islands (115 million euro) and Castilla la Mancha (110 million euro). In Madrid in 2017, less than 30 million euro in prizes was given out.

Reasons for playing

The study found that lottery tickets are bought at Christmas out of habit (almost 90 percent), because of social pressure and because of a kind of preventive envy ("it is not going to be my acquaintances that win", says the report), and only 35 percent for recreational reasons. The only social sectors not affected by the social pull of this lottery are those under 25 (only one in four young people enter the Christmas Lottery) and those who declare themselves non-players (of which just over 10 percent remember having bought tickets), according to the findings in the report.

"The most striking aspect of these figures is that, in the last four years in which these questions (regarding reasons for playing) have been included in the aforementioned study, the answers are almost exactly the same, which indicates stable behaviours. Something like a ritual that is repeated year after year," says the technical director of the Yearbook research team, José Antonio Gómez Yáñez, lecturer in Sociology and member of the University Institute of Politics and Governance at UC3M.

The Special Christmas Lottery accounts for more than half of the annual sales of National Lottery tickets and moves between 2,400 and 3,000 million euro each year. It is the largest lottery in the world and in Spain its social impact, according to number of consumers, is equivalent to the participation of the population in general elections, according to the Yearbook, which describes how the lottery operates, its figures and socio-economic data. Society participates in this lottery through individual purchases, tickets split among family and friends, as well as the sale of large volumes of tickets by associations and clubs that use it as a means of fundraising.

It is also worth noting that the percentage of Christmas Lottery ticket buyers who use the Internet has been growing consistently since 2013: from 0.7 percent in that year to 5.6 percent during Christmas 2017.

Related news: UC3M and CODERE present the 2018 Yearbook of Gambling in Spain

“The aim is to tell stories about women who are examples to follow, but who, except in Goodall’s case, are somewhat unknown in society”, points out the lecturer who will be in charge of telling these stories to the young children, Daniel Marías Martínez, a lecturer from the department of Humanities: History, Geography and Art at the UC3M. “Paying attention to children should be a priority for those who are concerned with these issues in one way or another and it is important to look for different ways of touching their hearts”, he adds.

When choosing these researchers, it was ensured that they were current and historical cases, as well as different geographical origins and different subject matters, in order to illustrate different ways of helping towards the preservation of nature. From these women, “I will highlight the passion and love they give off, as well as the fact that they were powerful elements of transformation and improvement” points out Daniel Marías.

What’s more, this researcher will also be giving a talk aimed at the general public on this subject, entitled “Female scientists and defenders of Nature”, which will take place on Wednesday 14th November at 19:00 in the Performance Hall (Salón de Actos) of the Public Library Eugenio Trías in Retiro Park. This talk will be focusing on Jane Goodall (1934), Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) and Vandana Shiva (1952).

The Madrid Science Week is an event for scientific dissemination and the participation of citizens organised by the madri+d Foundation for Knowledge, and is an event the UC3M has collaborated on for more than a decade. This event offers the public the opportunity to get to know first-hand the work that scientists carry out, their research, motivations and efforts.

Useful information:

• Title of the activity: Storytelling: Women, science and nature (Cuentacuentos: Mujeres, ciencia y naturaleza)
• Venue: Public Library Eugenio Trías. Casa de Fieras, Retiro Park
• Address: Paseo Fernán Núñez 24. Madrid
• Schedule: 12:00 to 13:00. Saturday 11th November
• Reservation required: No. Free attendance until maximum capacity (40 people).
• For more information: www.uc3m.es/semanadelaciencia2018

In the field of Business Administration and Management, Accounting, Finance, Economics and Econometrics, the UC3M ranks among the 200 best international universities, according to the . At national level, it is one of five Spanish institutions that appear in this Top200, together with the Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Navarra and Deusto universities.

In the area of Engineering and Technology, UC3M is ranked 251-300 internationally, according to , and in Arts and Humanities is among the 400 best universities in the world, according to the of THE. It also occupies prominent positions in the areas of Computer Science (), Social Sciences () and Physical Sciences ().

This classification by subject uses the same methodology as the THE World University Rankings, which evaluates the 1,600 best universities among the approximately 18,000 that exist globally. For this, thirteen performance indicators are analysed in five major fields: teaching, research, scientific appointments, international projection and the university’s relationship with industry. However, in this case, the methodology has been adjusted to suit the different academic fields analysed.

This increase in the number of scientific publications (which is one of the indicators for the evaluation of the research activity has come about despite there being no significant increase in the University teaching staff, which has gone from 59,925 in 2007 to 64,296 in 2016 in Spain.

Research paper rankings per geographical and subjects areas

Per autonomous regions, Catalonia has contributed 25.85% of the total publications of the SUE, followed by the Community of Madrid (with 19.97%), Andalusia (15.84%) and Valencia (12.63%). Andalusia is the region that has shown the largest increase in terms of publications in WoS during the analysed period.

Per subject area, Experimental Sciences are the ones that publish the most in WoS, with 37.4% of the total. Medicine and Pharmacology take second place with 27.36%, followed by Architecture, Engineering and Computer Science, with 25.39%. The subject areas with less publications in WoS are Social Sciences, with 10.67 %, and Arts and Humanities, with 5.96%. However, if the data on its development is taken into account, these areas are in fact the ones which have grown the most over the analysed period: 133.38% and 185.03% respectively.

The percentage of high-visibility documents (Journal publications situated in the first JCR quartile) has increased, going from 48.07% of documents in 2007 to 52.88% in 2016.

The international collaboration of Spanish universities has also increased during this decade, going from 37.18% of publications in 2007 to 50.23% in 2016. That is to say, researchers from other countries have participated in half of the scientific publications of Spanish universities. On the other hand, the opposite is true for national collaborations, which have decreased from 28.96% to 22.70% during this period.

Innovation and university competitiveness

With regards to innovative activity, the number of SUE patents granted by the Spanish Office of Patents and Brands (abbreviation in Spanish: OEPM) also has experienced an increase, it has gone from 256 in 2007 to 524 in 2016, which shows an increase of 104.69%. The 10 universities with the highest number of patents represent 57.26% of all university patents.

The analysis of competitiveness shows a reverse trend in national and European competitive projects. Whilst the former decreased by 12.65% (they’ve gone from 2300 in 2007 and to 2009 in 2016), on the contrary the European projects have increased by 53.01%, with 249 projects in 2007 compared to 381 in 2016).

Further  information:

“La Lotería de Navidad and in someways, el Sorteo del Niño (the “Christ Child” Lottery Drawing on the Epiphany) can be thought of like breaking an Olympic record.  …its place in the Spanish imagination puts it above any kind of crisis.  You might temporarily suffer, but you get over it almost immediately”, pointed out the technical director of the research team for the report, José Antonio Gómez Yáñez, UC3M sociology professor and member of the Instituto Universitario de Política y Gobernanza (University Institute of Policy and Governance).

Motivations to play

This study asserts that the Lotería de Navidad is purchased because of custom (84.7%), social pressure, and because of a type of preventative envy: “just in case someone I know wins and I don’t”. The only social sectors not part of the social snowball effect of the drawing are those under 25 (less than half of this group buy Lotería de Navidad), and those who do not play so as not to lose, according to the report’s authors.  However, in both of these sectors there has been a significant increase in sales, in line with a general increase of 4.8% for the Lotería de Navidad with respect to 2013.  

The percentage of those who purchase Lotería de Navidad through the Internet channel has grown steadily since 2013 by 0.7% that year to 2.9% during Christmas of 2016.  These sales were carried out through the online administration, other specialized webs and the corporate web of the Sociedad Estatal Loterías y Apuestas del Estado –SELAE (Spanish State Lotteries).  As a result, the SELAE official websites (and other regional lotteries) and the ONCE (The Spanish Association for the Blind) distributed nearly 122 million euros in prizes through this channel, of which 17.4 million euros corresponded to the Lotería de Navidad drawing.  

Further information:

News: UC3M and CODERE present the 2016/2017 Annual Spanish Gaming Report

According to the report, real gaming in Spain (amounts wagered minus prizes) represents about 8.886 billion euros, compared with 8.7165 billion euros in 2015. Ninety-five percent of gaming (about 8.442 billion euros) is done on site, compared with 444 million euros recorded for on-line gaming.

The biggest volume of real gaming (35.6%) corresponds to the State Lotteries and Bets Society (SELAE), followed by machines in the hotel industry (28.1%) and the ONCE (10.6%). On-line gaming represents a small fraction of the gaming in Spain (5%), but its importance is growing.

“There is a feeling in the industry that the data about gaming is not very reliable, that there are contradictions between the sources and discrepancies in the data. This is not so. The fact is that it is dispersed in its formats and its publication dates, creating a confusing feeling. The work of the report consists of compiling this information over the course of the year and ordering it,” said José Antonio Gómez Yáñez. Gómez is a sociology professor at the UC3M, a member of the IPOLGOB and the technical director of the report’s research team.

The biggest predicament that writing the report poses, according to its authors, has been the unreliability of certain data offered by certain institutions or business associations in the sector. “It seems incredible that, in the 21st century, the official figures that reflect the activity of this industry are not published, or are published with considerable delay, that the mandatory transparency is ignored,” said José Ignacio Cases Méndez. Cases is a professor emeritus at the UC3M, the Vice-President of the CODERE Foundation and the technical director of the report’s research team.

The gaming industry’s contribution to society

In 2016, almost 4,000 new jobs were generated, especially in the area of gaming halls and betting shops. Gaming employs nearly 84,000 people in Spain. A bit less than half the people are employed by SELAE and ONCE. SELAE provides jobs through its central services and administrations, and ONCE through its vendors and central services, which employ 20,000 people. Private companies account for 44,550 jobs.  There are also about 160,000 jobs generated indirectly by the gaming sector. Most of them are generated from on-site gaming, given that on-line gaming creates few jobs in Spain because most of the Internet employees are foreigners.

In specific taxes on gaming, different public administrations in Spain collected nearly 1.674 billion euros in 2016, 1.218 billion of which came from taxes on company activities. This includes public operators (SELAE), semi-public operators and private companies. It can be estimated that between 33 and 37 percent of company margins for gaming (their real income) are earmarked for tax payments.

In the last European call for ERC grants, Spain was awarded grants for 22 researchers, who will receive an average funding of 1,500,000 euros for a maximum of five years for them to develop to their scientific projects. Among universities in the Autonomous Region of Madrid, UC3M is the most successful in this call thanks to two new Starting Grants awarded to professors Jonas Radl and José Antonio Rodríguez.

Two new ERC research projects

Jonas Radl is a researcher in the UC3M Department of Social Sciences. The research project he will develop within the framework of the ERC is called “Effort and Social Inequality: Advancing Measurement and Understanding Parental Origin Effects.” Understanding that success in life depends on the formula “ability + effort,” the goal is to verify to what degree there are social differences in effort. In this regard, it is known that the cognitive abilities of children are related to, among other factors, family resources, but the role of effort has hardly been studied. To collect data on effort, studies on children in Madrid and Berlin will be carried out to reveal which individuals tend to make greater efforts: those from a privileged social background or those who come from families with fewer means. “The results of this project will help design policies to promote equal opportunities,” said Radl.

José Antonio Rodríguez is a researcher in the UC3M Department of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Analysis. The research project he will develop at the ERC is called “Opening a New Route in Solid Mechanics: Printed Protective Structures.” This research could help the use of 3D printing to make protection structures, which would drastically reduce costs of production, transport and repair. “This would be a revolution for strategic industrial sectors for Europe, such as aerospace and civil safety, in which mechanical elements of high structural responsibility are frequently subjected to impact loads,” said the researcher.

The University already has six ERC projects (four Starting Grants and two Consolidator Grants) with global funding of more than 8,000,000 euros from the European Research Council through the H2020 Excellent Science program. In general, the participation of UC3M has been very successful. It is in 15th place in Spain for the return obtained in this program and in 7th place among Spanish universities, according to the last report presented by the Center for Technological Industrial Development (CDTI in Spanish). The CDTI pertains to the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, which monitored and evaluated participation of Spanish institutions three years after the start of H2020.

Further information:

ERC website:

Polavieja will talk about the silent revolution Spain has experienced as a result of immigration flows unprecedented in the modern history of the country. “The challenges these ‘new Spaniards’ face are crucial for our country, and their success depends to a large extent on the sustainability of the welfare system and our capacity for economic growth in the future. In particular, I will focus on the problem of labor discrimination and the importance that studying discrimination from a compared perspective has,” he said.

Lorenzo, meanwhile, will focus his talk on the phenomenon of the mobility of Spanish youth in Europe and the effects or determinants that make them leave, or prevent them from doing so. “There is a great diversity of reasons for this mobility, not only among Spanish youth, but also among the different territories that make up the European Union. What I want to pose is a series of questions that make the audience think about this matter, questions that make them react, think about what is happening around them, what we can and must demand of our institutions, governments and representatives,” he said.

Audiovisual Staging and Theater

The event will have an audiovisual production that explores the role of cinema as one of the depictions that has culturally expressed the notion of European identity. There will also be a play that was written and planned exclusively for this event. The play explores emigration as a phenomenon that is at once conflictive for the individual and instrumental in creating their identity.

This event is part of European Researchers Night Madrid, a scientific dissemination project that has been held simultaneously in 340 European cities since 2005. In the Autonomous Region of Madrid, it is promoted by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and coordinated by the Fundación Madri+d. This project is funded by the European Union in the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions) under the agreement of subsidy number 721631.

Further information:

Otra de las conclusiones que apuntan estos investigadores es que el enfoque de las políticas públicas para prevenir el juego problemático debe orientarse a acciones de precisión más que extensivas orientadas a toda la población. Paradójicamente, los sectores a los que con frecuencia se califica de vulnerables son los que menos juegan. Por tanto, el problema de la vulnerabilidad ante el juego problemático está en otra parte: en rasgos de personalidad, de predisposición...elementos más individuales o familiares que sociales.

Según el informe, existe una estrecha relación entre la sensibilidad ante el juego problemático y la satisfacción ante la vida, “lo hace que pensar que las frustraciones subjetivas, derivadas de circunstancias personales o familiares infortunadas, son el detonante de las adicciones, en concreto, la del juego, no a la inversa”, afirman los autores del estudio. Según esto, existe una estrecha vinculación entre los problemas cognitivos implicados en la adicción al juego y la negativa percepción subjetiva del bienestar personal. “Este dato refuerza lo observado en muchos estudios: la sensibilidad a las adicciones es resultado de problemas personales de fondo”, concluyen.

Perfil del jugador

En 2017, el 81,9 por ciento de los residentes en España mayores de 18 años jugaron a algún juego de azar. El juego más popular es la Lotería de Navidad (75,9%), seguido del sorteo de El Niño (47,5%), las loterías primitivas (37,6%) y los sorteos de la ONCE (19,3%). “Todos son juegos de promoción pública, de los denominados de ilusión, en los que se pueden conseguir grandes premios a muy bajo coste”, apunta el informe.

Por otra parte, permanece estable (entre un 16% y un 18%) el porcentaje de personas que no juega y se considera no jugador. Se trata de una parte de la población con actitudes negativas ante el juego basadas en juicios morales que asocian el juego con comportamientos “no productivos”. Este colectivo es mayoritariamente femenino y muy joven. En general, los jóvenes juegan menos que la media, sobre todo a los juegos públicos (loterías, ONCE).

Economic and Research Data

According to the conclusions of the report, the slight increase in internal spending per researcher in Spain in 2015 does not equal the figures from 2008. Moreover, revenue generated by research (R&D) diminished by 19% from 2008 to 2014, with sharp declines of nearly 67% at some universities. Revenue earned by non-financial operations of the universities, according to the CRUE, has decreased since 2008 by an average of 14.02%, and by more than 18% at some universities.

The number of researchers in the Spanish science system is also in decline, having fallen 9.1% between 2010 and 2015, with a slight improvement in the last year analyzed. The number of professors in the SUE has slightly increased (8.65%), with an average accumulative growth of 0.93%.

Productivity and Collaboration on R&D&i

The productivity of professors almost doubled during this period. On the Web of Science (WoS), a platform that compiles references of the main scientific journals, the average number of publications per professor per year went from 0.49 in 2006 to 0.83 in 2015. By autonomous regions, Catalonia leads as the most productive, responsible for 25.68%, followed by Madrid (with 19.91%) and Andalusia (with 15.63%).

On breaking down production by subject areas, the data show that the experimental sciences continue to be the most represented (with some 36 publications), although they are down compared with 2006 (42%). Noteworthy are the improvements of the social sciences (10.8% at the end of the period compared with 7% at the beginning) and the arts and the humanities (5.89% compared with 3.51%).

With regard to scientific collaboration, the report highlights the increase in international collaboration, which reached 48.11% in 2015, up from 36.8% in 2006. In this area, the United States continues to be the country that collaborates the most, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.

Impact of Research

As for the impact of the research, in terms of visibility, the report highlights the increase of publications in journals from the first quartile (top 25% of journals with the highest international impact), which went from 49.09% to 53%. Also to note is the increase in the number of patents granted, which increased by 125.36% over the period.

The analysis of competitiveness notes a decline in the number of projects presented in national plans with respect to international plans, data indicative of the search for opportunities in the European sphere (Framework Programme Horizon 2020).

With regard to talent attraction, there was an increase in Juan de la Cierva and Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral contracts as of 2013. FPU pre-doctoral contracts declined considerably in 2008, with a recovery in 2015. The number of theses increased by nearly 113%.

Complete report:

Further information:

The model designed for the Madrid City Council makes it possible to produce a final ranking of neighborhoods (and, as such, of districts) based on the needs identified in each of them. For the ranking, a number of relevant social and economic indicators were assessed, such as employment rates, dependency ratios, educational level, life expectancy, the condition of  infrastructure, gross income per capita, etc. “If, thanks to this system, we identify a neighborhood that has a special situation of vulnerability or rate of development lower than the rest of the city for reasons related to unemployment or education, it will appear high in the ranking and offer us a line of public action to correct that imbalance,” explained Roberto Losada Maestre, one of the researchers, from the UC3M Department of Social Sciences.

The research project, called “Diseño de nueva metodología de determinación del grado de desequilibrio de distritos y barrios y sus necesidades de reequilibrio y obtención de nuevo indicador sintético destinado a mejorar la dotación del Fondo de Reequilibrio Territorial (Design of new methodology to determine the degree of imbalance of districts and neighborhoods and their needs for rebalancing and creation of a new synthetic indicator destined to improving the endowment of the Territorial Rebalancing Fund),  has revealed which of Madrid’s neighborhoods are the most disadvantaged. This vulnerability index orders the 128 neighborhoods from highest to lowest by their rebalancing needs. In the upper echelon of the ranking are neighborhoods such as San Diego and Entrevías (Puente de Vallecas) and San Cristóbal and San Andrés (Villaverde), while places near the bottom are occupied by neighborhoods like El Plantío and Valdemarín (Moncloa-Aravaca), El Viso and Nueva España (Chamartín), Recoletos (Salamanca) and Jerónimos (Retiro).

“These results confirm the perception that most of the imbalances are concentrated in Madrid’s southern zone, although thanks to the system’s level of detail, we have identified the existence of vulnerable neighborhoods in some districts that are ranked high on economic indicators,” said Rubén Sánchez Medero, another of the researchers, from the UC3M Department of Social Sciences. For example, this is the case of the district of Salamanca, where, despite its average income of greater than 55,000 euros, there are neighborhoods that need the help of the FRT, such as Guindalera. Adelfas, in the district of Retiro,is a similar example.

In addition, this system has made it possible to confirm correlations discovered in previous research, such as the one established between “educational level and unemployment, which significantly determine the appearance of vulnerable areas where, in turn, lower values for sustainable urban development are observed,” according to the researchers.

The use of territorial rebalancing funds in urban areas that undergo unequal development has become an indispensable tool for correcting social, economic and environmental inequalities. The allocation of these funds is a complex task that must be conducted in a dynamic and changing environment where needs grow quickly and require taking an ever greater number of indicators into account.

This method might be useful for public decision-makers. Its application for the first time in Madrid opens a promising route, as it allows for greater participation of different actors in this process.  “We used a technology known in the business world as hierarchical analysis, and we applied it via artificial intelligence to an environment where it is not normally used: public decision-making. Thanks to this, it is now possible to fuse the opinions of large numbers of people, who don’t need to be experts on the allocation of budgets or indicators of development,” explained José Manuel Molina, from the UC3M Applied Artificial Intelligence Group. “In the future, we will be able to integrate the opinions of millions of people to adopt decisions based on the largest consensus possible.” In fact, the research team is planning to extend the application of the model to participatory processes that incorporate target actors (mainly citizens) in an orderly way that permits the implementation of participatory public administration models. Ultimately, it is exploring potential developments in a field where artificial intelligence and political science converge.

Identity and melancholy are indeed key concepts in my research under the Conex program. To put it in simple terms, melancholy means a fixation on loss, on what we had, or imagined we had, and an inability to get over the loss. I reach back to Sigmund Freud for a definition of melancholy: what particularly interests me is the initial distinction that he makes between mourning and melancholy, and the fact that he abandons this distinction in his later writings. I find this inability to distinguish between melancholy and mourning interesting, because it reveals a very human trait that I think is important in philosophy and in literature: namely, the courage to retrace one’s steps, look back, and admit being wrong. For Freud, melancholy (and later, mourning as well) is an ego-generating process, which means that we can claim to have a self only after experiencing a certain loss. Thus, the concepts of melancholy and identity are closely connected: one does not exist without the other. I define identity as an ability to claim a self, to say, for example, I am Californian, and I recognize that this self is always founded on a loss.

Your research tackles the American (and, more specifically, the Californian) identity in its literary manifestations. What are the most defining features of that identity?

Wallace Stegner once stated that California is like the rest of the United States, only more so. I think it’s a humorous, but telling response. If American identity is structured around the ideas of individual freedom, it becomes even more pronounced in the case of California. California sees itself as being at the forefront of progress, and justly so: it has proved time and again that it is more willing to introduce progressive if controversial legislature, being a forerunner in climate change research and laws, in renewable energy legislation; but also in social issues, such as LGBT rights and immigrant rights.

To what extent does the State of California embody the so-called "American dream"?

The flipside of this characteristically American optimistic approach, whose part is looking into the future rather than back to examine the past, is that the American dream can always turn into the American nightmare, and California is also a case in point. With its perfect climate, its amazing natural beauty, its openness to technological progress and its attractiveness for arts and especially the movie business, it can be seen as an apogee of the American dream, and in fact, in the 19th century it was advertised as such, when immigrants from other parts of the United States and from all over the world were sought, and persuaded to populate California. At the same time, this “earthly paradise” was a hellish nightmare to many who either resided there before the American expansion and annexation of the region, or who came after, such as Native Americans, Californios, or the Chinese immigrants.

You affirm that the Californian identity is constructed, to a great extent, from the Hispanic influence. What are the most pronounced traces of this influence?

An article in the Guardian asserted once that it is not the Chican@s who crossed the border; it’s the border that jumped them. I find this statement perceptive and correct. It is in Chican@ literature that we find the most pronounced traces of the Hispanic influence, but I think that it can be seen not only in literature, but also in architecture, in art, in cuisine, which is to say, everywhere. That does not mean equating Hispanic with Chican@; it means taking a longer historical perspective to include cultural influences on the region that took place four hundred years ago and morphed into various forms. What I find truly fascinating is how varied California is, and how undefinable its identity is – and that is a good thing. A stable, unified, homogeneous identity is an exclusive concept, that is, it keeps “others” from being accepted as part of “us.”

Do you consider that the convulsive US political context, marked by growing protectionism, will contribute to radicalize/reinforce the patriotic American identity?

I hope not. There are always centrifugal forces to counter the centralized, unified, homogenic identity. In fact, I think that California is the place to watch out for new forms of identity, new definitions of Americanness. Incidentally, right after the most recent elections there were renewed talks of California secession and it becoming an independent country – which I don’t think will happen, but I think the timing is important here. Discussing the idea of leaving the union at a time when this union reinforces a claustrophobic, xenophobic policy is itself a statement and it forms a part of this centrifugal force that I mentioned.

What motivations have led you to develop research on this topic?

I wrote my doctoral dissertation on postcolonial literatures and theories, and I did part of my research towards the doctoral degree at the University of California in Los Angeles. I think what led me to develop this project was partly my interest in the idea of a destabilized, postcolonial identity, and partly my fascination with the place where I spent such a productive time.

What methodology do you apply in your research?

I am inspired by postcolonial studies, border studies, New Historians, gender and feminist studies. My methodology is as eclectic as my approach to the issues of identity. I think multidisciplinary research is the key.

What results do you expect to get?

My monograph on Joan Didion and the melancholic Californian identity is under contract with a New York-based academic publisher and should be out this year. I also have a co-edited volume of essays about Californian pop culture coming out this year, under contract with a North Carolina publisher. These volumes are the two most important and most direct results of my research.

What are the advantages of investigating this issue within the context of CONEX?

The support that I have under the Conex program is unprecedented, and cannot be overstated. It allows me to put all my time and energy into research. Carlos III is a wonderful place to conduct research, a welcoming, internationally-minded community, and that is also very important. I am very grateful to be part of the Conex program at Carlos III.

One of the central phases of the project is the initiation of a group of students through seminars. What attraction do you think Spanish university students find in a project of these characteristics?

I hope that a discussion of a heterogeneous, open, fluid identity is not only attractive, but also important to young people at the university. I believe in the university as a space of dialogue, and my research pivots on the idea that we should keep the channels of dialogue open, listen to the other, and acknowledge the other within ourselves. I think we should keep it in mind at all times, but especially today, when closing the borders, shutting down communication, expelling those unlike “us” is the root of the problems we are facing, not only in the United States, but also in Europe.

The  Program is supported by the European Union (Marie Curie FP7 Actions, grant agreement no. 600371), from the  Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness)  (COFUND2013-51509) and  Banco Santander, through Santander Universidades.  

In the case of Spanish scientists abroad, the results show that, along with salaries, the most decisive variables are basically centered on differential advantages of the destination sites, specifically,  research career, training, funding and institutional prestige. However, in the case of scientists who return to the country, these decisive differential advantages are less influential. More important are aspects linked to social capabilities (working conditions—vacations, number of hours of work—and complementary benefits—parental leave, job insurance, and quality of retirement pensions, among others).

From this it can be affirmed that “Spanish health organizations can influence the return of their scientists,” according to the researchers of the study. Thus, the implementation of attractive policies that combine differential advantages with an intensification of social capabilities can end up being decisive not only for the return but also for the permanence and stability of Spanish researchers.

These policies can materialize in public-private collaboration initiatives, which would make it possible to obtain resources from companies (payments for social insurance or day care centers, for example). Moreover, among other measures, the labor integration of researchers in hospitals and companies or entrepreneurial support can be furthered with the goal of promoting new lines of research.

The conclusions of this study have implications for the improvement of national public health services, as adequate mobility of researchers allows rapid incorporation of new knowledge in clinical practice to improve the quality of life as well as the life expectancy of citizens.

In addition, the results of the research could be useful for more effective and efficient management of health services. These results could also help in the development of new drugs, vaccines, medical devices or equipment with the possibility of improving diagnoses and treatments of patients and becoming a new source of wealth and employment.

Funding for this study comes from research projects carried out by the Dirección General de Migraciones del Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social and Novanca/Caja Rural. The organizations that collaborated in the dissemination of the questionnaire to scientific groups are the following: Fundación Universidad-Empresa (FUE), Federación de Jóvenes Investigadores, Colegio Oficial de Físicos (COFIS), Federación Española de Biotecnólogos (FEBiotec), ARATECH, Centro de Innovación de la Universidad de Oviedo, Society of Spanish Researchers in the United Kingdom/Comunidad de Científicos Españoles en el Reino Unido (SRUK/CERU), Científicos Españoles en la República Federal de Alemania. (CERFA), Asociación de Científicos Españoles en Japón (ACE Japón), Españoles Científicos en Estados Unidos (ECUSA), Asociación de Científicos Españoles en Suecia/Association of Spanish Scientists in Sweden (ACES/ FSFS), Spanish Research in Australia-Pacific/Investigadores Españoles en Australia-Pacífico (SRAP/IEAP), Científicos Españoles en Dinamarca/Spanske Forskere i Danmark (CED) and Científicos Retornados a España (CRE).

Bibliographical reference: Aceituno-Aceituno P., Melchor L., Danvila-del-Valle J., Bousoño-Calzón C. (2017), “Cumulative Advantages and Social Capabilities in Scientific Mobility in the Health Sciences: The Spanish Case.” PLOS ONE 12(3): e0173204. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173204

Claves para la atracción del talento científico en ciencias de la salud

According to the data, it can be observed, first, that the intensity of recession significantly correlates with anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe. “In places where recession was most severe, anti-immigration attitudes increased markedly, while in countries where the fall in the GDP was moderate, there was little or no increase in anti-immigrant sentiments,” said Polavieja. Secondly, the research shows that “the countries which had the largest increases in immigration before the crisis are the countries where anti-immigration attitudes have increased most dramatically during recession,” according to Polavieja.

The impact of job characteristics on attitudes towards immigration

At the microeconomic level, the study analyzes the attitudinal correlates of  three job characteristics that determine the degree of workers’ exposure to competition in the labor market. These characteristics are: the average degree of job-specific training required in each occupation, the costs of monitoring workers’ productivity, and, lastly, the relative weight of communication-intensive versus manual-intensive tasks.

Using a representative sample of approximately 35,000 European workers, the study finds that these three job dimensions are associated with opinions about immigration. Workers who are more protected from competition hold more favorable views towards immigration while those more exposed to competition have more unfavorable attitudes, and this regardless of their educational level, political ideology, religiosity levels and many other attitudinal, psychological and sociodemographic controls.

This is a very important discovery because it suggests that attitudes about immigration have objective microeconomic foundations that are related to the degree of exposure to labor-market competition. “There are many studies of attitudes towards immigration, but very few have managed to identify the microeconomic basis of anti-immigrant sentiments in a precise and consistent manner,” Polavieja concluded.

The study was carried out within the framework of two research projects: The CALMA project, Competition, Adaptation and Labor Market Achievement of International Migrants in Europe, funded by the 6th National Plan for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CSO2012-38521); and the GEMM project, Growth, Equal Opportunities, Migration and Markets, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program (GA-649255).

Bibliographical reference:

Polavieja, J. G. (2016). Labour-market competition, recession and anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe: occupational and environmental drivers of competitive threat. Socio-Economic Review, 14(3):395-417.

调查对移民态度的经济基础 (Chinese version)

 

Only 10% of the consumers who buy Christmas Lottery regularly play during the rest of the year, states the technical director of the yearly report’s research team, José Antonio Gómez Yáñez, a Sociology professor at UC3M and a member of the IPOLGOB.

The data from the report also show that, last year, 89.3% of the participants bought Christmas lottery due to tradition, social pressure or “preventive envy”, compared with 29.8% who claimed that they played because they actually enjoy the lottery. “The only ones who do not participate in the Christmas lottery are non-gamblers who can cope with the risk that people they know will win, and those who coldly avoid the climate of social pressure that the lottery  unleashes,” points out Gómez Yáñez.

Regarding the purchases, according to data from the study, almost all of those who bought tickets in 2015 did so with tickets (décimos) or portions (smaller shares of a ticket) made of paper (97.9%), compared with just 2% who reported buying a number on the internet.

Who are the people who don’t play the Christmas Lottery? These non-buyers make up between 25% and 29% of Spaniards. Professor José Antonio Gómez Yáñez highlights several common traits to be found among these individuals, including having “a very negative view of gambling” and maybe even “considering it a vice”. There is also a group of people who are very rational, and who carefully weigh their probability of holding a winning ticket.

Statistics are against the populace. Only five percent of the numbers carry prize money, only ten percent will win back the money they’ve gambled, and 85 percent will win absolutely nothing. Despite the fact that the probability of winning is infinitesimal (0.000001% in the case of the Gordo – the first prize), excitement at the prospect of winning, and sheer hope usually outweigh rationality, concludes Gómez Yañez.

El Anuario del juego en España 2015/2016 refleja la consolidación del cambio de tendencia en el juego presencial, con cantidades jugadas similares a las registradas en 2001, que en 2015 alcanzaron los 25.533,6 millones de euros, un 5,9 % más que en 2014. El juego online mantiene su típica tendencia ascendente respecto a las cantidades jugadas, sumando 8.562,8 millones de euros, aproximadamente 2.000 millones de euros más que en el año anterior. De esa cantidad, casi la mitad (4.180,1 millones) corresponden a las apuestas deportivas online.

Aportación de la industria del juego a la sociedad

El sector del juego en España mueve actualmente alrededor de 30.000 millones de euros, en torno al 3% del PIB nacional. Durante el año 2015, en el segmento del juego privado se crearon 1.300 nuevos empleos, especialmente en el ámbito de los salones de juego, casinos y locales de apuestas deportivas. En términos generales, el juego genera casi 160.000 empleos indirectos y más de 80.000 directos. De éstos, las empresas de gestión privada sostienen más de la mitad, alcanzando los 42.476 puestos de trabajo, según los datos de 2015.  

En impuestos específicos sobre el juego, las distintas administraciones públicas en España han recaudado 1.637,8 millones de euros en 2015. Esta cifra incluye los 451 millones de euros correspondientes al gravamen del 20% sobre los premios de loterías superiores a los 2.500 euros, así como los 3,2 millones pagados por los ganadores de premios de bingo vigentes en algunas comunidades autónomas y en Pamplona. Adicionalmente a los impuestos al juego, las empresas privadas contribuyen con los gravámenes a los que están sujetos todas las compañías: en 2015 desembolsaron 96,9 millones de euros en el Impuesto de Sociedades; se destinaron 211,7 millones de euros a cotizaciones sociales y sus empleados generaron más de 40 millones de euros en Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas (IRPF). Incluyendo todos los ámbitos, tanto los operadores públicos (SELAE), los semipúblicos (ONCE), como las empresas privadas, se observa cómo prácticamente la mitad de los márgenes de las empresas (el llamado Gross Gaming Revenue o GGR, cantidad jugada menos los premios) revierten en el Estado de uno u otro modo.

En general, la industria del juego se ha recuperado visiblemente en los dos últimos años, en línea con la tendencia general del sector del entretenimiento, según este informe. Esta evolución global se constata en todo el sector, pero hay sensibles diferencias en la evolución por juegos. El segmento con un crecimiento más dinámico y que sigue siendo motor de la recuperación de la industria del juego es el de las apuestas deportivas, que registró 5.395,5 millones de euros en cantidades jugadas (presenciales y online legales) en 2015, un 41,3 % más que en 2014, de los cuales casi el 78% corresponden a las apuestas en el ámbito online.

Este curso monográfico se imparte en inglés por profesores y profesionales de l天美传媒 y de la FAO. El objetivo es profundizar a lo largo de una semana en los factores que influyen en la pobreza rural, la cadena y seguridad alimentaria o las instituciones que pueden luchar contra la pobreza y el hambre. En este sentido, se tratarán temas como: la nutrición infantil, el acceso al agua potable, la influencia de los conflictos bélicos, las políticas agrarias, las cadenas de comercio internacional, las herramientas cooperativas para conseguir erradicar el hambre, etc.

El curso, organizado por la Carlos III International School, se imparte en el campus de Getafe de l天美传媒 del 4 al 8 de julio y el plazo de las inscripciones se ha extendido hasta el 29 de junio. Su precio es 280 euros para alumnos de l天美传媒, 320 euros para estudiantes y 400 euros para el público general. Cuenta con el reconocimiento de 1 crédito ECTS de Humanidades.

La Carlos III International School de l天美传媒, mediante sus cursos de verano, ofrece la posibilidad de sumergirse en otras culturas, abordar la actualidad desde una perspectiva crítica y adquirir competencias en el ámbito jurídico, empresarial y de negocios, entre otros. Ejemplo de ellos son los siguientes cursos ya celebrados: "Modelos de dirección empresarial en Asia Oriental", "Comunicación para los negocios"; y otro que próximamente tendrá lugar, titulado "Arbitraje internacional".

Estos niveles impiden hablar de sectores sociales en los que este problema sea prioritario o esté extendido, según los autores del estudio. Lo que hay es un perfil de personas afectadas: básicamente hombres, menores de 35 ó 25 años y con un estatus socioeconómico medio y alto.

En el juego problemático se observa una tendencia al descenso en los últimos 25 años. No obstante, se está detectando un problema creciente en el juego online, debido a la prolongada duración de las sesiones o los más de 300 días al año que se conectan de media unos 50.000 jugadores online.

Juego online y presencial

Por comunidades autónomas, Madrid es la región en la que se concentra el mayor número de jugadores online (con un 20,1%), seguida de Andalucía (16,7%), Comunidad Valenciana (13,6%), Cataluña (13,3%) y Galicia (5,5%). De estas regiones, Valencia y Andalucía registraron en 2015 aumentos interanuales significativos de 3,4 y 3,9 puntos porcentuales, respectivamente. Por el contrario, el porcentaje de concentración de jugadores online se redujo en Madrid en 3,8 puntos y en Cataluña en 3,5 puntos.

Otras tendencias recogidas en el informe señalan cómo se normaliza la compra de las loterías públicas por Internet y cómo cambia el perfil del jugador entre los días laborables y festivos (estos últimos cuentan con una actividad mayoritariamente masculina). Asimismo, el bingo muestra una mayor progresión que los juegos de casino por Internet, aunque sigue situándose por detrás: un 26% de los jugadores recuerda haber probado suerte en el bingo en los dos últimos meses, mientras que un 29,7% de los jugadores dice haberlo hecho en los casinos online.

En el ámbito presencial, en 2015 a la Lotería Nacional jugaron alguna vez  tres de cada cuatro residentes en España de entre 18 y 75 años (75,1%), lo que supone un incremento de casi 2,5 puntos con respecto al dato de 2013. Esta recuperación llega gracias, sobre todo, a la recuperación de los niveles de ventas del sorteo de El Niño tras el impacto de la implantación del gravamen del 20% a los premios superiores a 2.500 euros en 2013. En el caso del bingo, se registró un ligero aumento en el número de personas que probaron suerte en 2015, al llegar a los 2,8 millones de jugadores (8,2%), frente a los 2,6 millones de 2014 (7,6 %).

IUNE, using 47 indicators, analyzes information for 74 public and private Spanish universities for the years between 2005 and 2014, a period of great consequence for SUE scientific activity, according to the report’s authors.  “The effect of the crisis on universities is being particularly grave, since, in addition to the large drop in economic resources due to budget cuts, we have to add the hold on renewal of university staff and the freeze on faculty promotion and all university personnel,” noted the IUNE Observatory coordinator, UC3M Full Professor, Elías Sanz Casado..

According to the report’s conclusions, during this period there has been a significant loss of resources in the Spanish scientific university system.  Specifically, funding by researchers has decreased 6.7% in recent years. (From 112,240€ in 2008 to 104,890€ in 2014) and the evolution of university spending witnessed a nearly 8% drop in 2014 with respect to 2010

Nevertheless, there was also a strong reaction on the part of the Spanish universities, which are responding in exemplary fashion according to many of the indicators analyzed.  Specifically, they has improved their figures for output, visibility, international collaboration, competitiveness, and participation in European Union scientific projects, for example.

In the past decade, the universities’ scientific output in the Web of Science (one of the chief data bases for worldwide scientific output) nearly doubled, from 26,124 publications in 2005 to 51,301 in 2014 (96.7% more). As a consequence, a marked increase in the scientific output of the universities’ faculty can be observed, going from an average of .045 papers per professor in 2005 to 0.81 in 2014.  Furthermore, the visibility of these researchers has also grown, since the publications in the first quartile (where the top scientific journals are located) represented 53.23% of all papers published by university professors in 2014

More than half of domestic scientific output in three regional communities

By regional community, the highest scientific output is held by Catalonia (with 100,313 publications in the ten- year period; 22.72% of total SUE publications) while Madrid holds second place (78,032 publications; 17.67% of the total). Andalucía comes in third (60,806 publications; 13.77%), ahead of the Valencian Regional Community (49,994 publications; 11.32% of the SUE contribution). In addition, Galicia and the Basque Country, despite their smaller size, have undergone significant growth in the last decade.

With respect to scientific cooperation with other institutions, the significant increase in international collaboration is noteworthy, with the United States being the most attractive for Spanish universities, followed by United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy.  Collaboration among authors also improved and experienced important growth throughout the decade.

Innovation and funding

With respect to innovation activity, between 2004 and 2014 4,153 patents were granted to universities, representing a growth rate of 136.4%.  The creation of university supported spin-offs experienced different behavior, being very irregular during the ten-year period; this area witnessed its best year in 2013, with 127 companies of this type, while the smallest number of  companies were created  in 2014 (89)..

As for competitive funding, Spanish universities experienced a twofold trend: on one hand, participation in national plans and government research continued to decrease (due to the slowdown in these projects as well as their decreased funding), on the other hand, participation in the European Framework Program and Horizon 2020 scientific programs since 2009 did increase.    

As in previous editions, the IUNE Observatory is able to obtain disaggregated information for each of the public and private universities.  To obtain the data that it analyzes, it uses official information sources, such as the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (National Institute of Statistics; INE in Spanish), the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport; MECD in Spanish), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness; MINECO in Spanish),  the Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas (Spanish Office of Brands and Patents; OEPM in Spanish), and the Centro para el Desarrollo Industrial (Center for Industrial Development; CDTI in Spanish).

Further informaion::

Noticia en chino (Chinese news)

Last year’s ‘Special Christmas Lottery (Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad)’ will be remembered as the drawing of the recovery, the report notes: “After three consecutive years of decreasing sales during the economic crisis, sales figures increased for the first time… reaching 2.472 billion Euros, a 4.64% increase over the previous year.” The drawing also stands out for the quantity of prize money that was distributed: 1.999 billion Euros, that is, 80.9% of sales. “Never before, as far as we know, had prizes skyrocketed to such numbers; in previous years they had remained at around 65% of sales”, indicates the Anuario’s technical director, José Antonio Gómez Yáñez, professor of sociology and a member of UC3M’s Instituto de Política y Gobernanza (IPOLGOB- Institute for Policy and Governance).

This publication offers “an academic and, thus, neutral, objective vision of what games of chance represent in our country, covering all activities, both public and private, that are related to the gambling industry,” explains the Anuario’s promoter, José Ignacio Cases, professor emeritus of UC3M.

The buyer’s profile and reasons

In 2014, 74.1% of the residents of Spain bought National Lottery, compared with 72.7% of the residents in 2013. There was also a notable increase in the proportion of women who bought lottery tickets. These percentages indicate that three quarters of the residents in Spain, including immigrants, bought National Lottery at some point during the year.

Under the name Lotería Nacional (National Lottery) there are actually three different products: the Christmas Lottery, so-named since 1892; the special El Niño (The Child) Lottery; and the rest of the weekly drawings (Thursdays and Saturdays). In En 2014, 53.1% of the annual sales came from the first, while El Niño represented 13% of sales.

In 2014, 73.1% of the residents in Spain bought Christmas Lottery, an increase of 2% with respect to the percentage of buyers in 2013. Almost all of them participated buying décimos (tickets that represent shares of a given number) or paper “participaciones” (décimos divided into even smaller portions by organizations, so a buyer would receive a portion of the winnings if that number is a prize-winner) (98,2%) and only 1.5% stated that they had bought tickets on the Internet.

This study concludes that people buy Christmas Lottery due to traditions (88%), because of social pressure and a type of preventive envy: “you wouldn’t want others around you to win and not you.” This mechanism is stronger than the refusal to play; 43.3% of those who participate state that they would prefer not to, in order to avoid losing, the annual report notes. To sum up: “the only ones who do not take part in the Christmas Lottery are those non-gamblers who are able to handle the risk of seeing those around them win and who, coldly, remove themselves from the social pressure the lottery unleashes,” states Professor José Antonio Gómez Yáñez.

The objectives of my current work are, first of all, the identification and conceptualization of centrally important dimensions of variation among democracies—that is, the facets of political life that differ between one democracy and another—and secondly, the specification of determinants which help to place democracies at a higher or lower position on those dimensions. There is a lot of academic work on this subject, but much disagreement remains over the very vocabulary used to analyze variation between democracies, and about the selection of analytical tools for such work. I am interested in the improvement of that vocabulary and of the research tools used in this field of work.

What differences exist among democracies?

There are a great many elements of differentiation among democracies – among them the degree of political inclusion of economically disadvantaged sectors, the type of discourse used by politicians and activists, the degree of authenticity of the basic guarantees of democracy (such as the secret ballot), etc.

What are the causes of such variation among democracies?

The differences among democracies are due in part to the legacies of political actions carried out in the past. There are some legacies from the past that survive in the form of the predominant culture and others that survive because of the configuration of formal institutions and written laws. There are also differences that are the result of structural constraints that do not change easily.

Are there any perfect democracies?

No, I’m afraid there are no fully perfect democracies.  But there are differences among democracies in their degree of authenticity, quality, depth and consolidation. Many times strongly favorable achievements of a democracy on a certain dimension are not fully reflected or “seconded” on other dimensions. In this regard, the high quality of parliamentary debate in British democracy is an example to be emulated. British public discourse—especially in the Parliament—reflects the great promise of democracy much more than the daily political discourse in my own country (the U.S.A.). But on other dimensions British democracy has its shortcomings. Democracy in principle entails political equality among all citizens, but Great Britain is less egalitarian than many other European countries.

What are the characteristics or parameters used to analyze a democracy?

The basic dimensions I identify are authenticity, quality, depth and consolidation.  Each of them is, in turn, constituted by a broader set of features or indicators. Some features of democracy are easy to capture and measure, but others are not. For example, the degree of corruption in a political system is not easy to measure because, almost by definition, it is normally hidden. There are attempts to measure it, but they are very limited. And there are other aspects of political life that are also more difficult to study empirically than social scientists would like. One of the components of my research is precisely methodological and is focused on contributing to operationalizing the conceptual concerns that drive the study of democratic variation.

How would you assess or grade the quality of democracy in Spain?

Spanish democracy has achieved a lot, but it also has several significant shortcomings. It is obvious—as virtually everyone observes—that the consolidation of democracy in a country that has a history of major historical confrontations was a very important milestone in the period of the democratic transition and the years that followed. The honesty and speed of vote counting after polling stations close on election days is another important merit. In the United States, the vote count is much slower and is unfortunately very susceptible to electoral fraud. However, Spanish democracy has had several large problems, three of which I would like to emphasize: the weakness of the guarantee of the secret ballot, the way in which some politicians have sought to marginalize or even delegitimize protests and the voices of discontent among citizens, and a certain lack of mutual tolerance among some political actors. Debate and disagreement are very healthy—even necessary—in a democracy, but the lack of mutual tolerance can only lead to problems.

Does the fracture of the two-party system affect democracy in any way?

It does, but there is much debate about this subject between the defenders and critics of two party systems. Multi-party systems correspond more fully with voter preferences given their greater “supply” of parties. It is easier in a multi-party system for each voter to find a party that really coincides with her own ideology. On the other hand, in a two party democracy, the voters themselves choose the government—albeit among options that often do not convince large sectors of the electorate. In a multi-party parliamentary democracy the parliamentarians themselves—and the leadership of the different political parties—have to elaborate a functional combination of supporters to obtain a parliamentary majority and form a government, in keeping with the constraints established by the number of seats that each party wins.

What challenges does democracy face today?

Many. A very important one has to do with the capacity of governments to make and carry out public policy decisions in EU member countries and, above all, in the Eurozone. This subject was the main point of a book published recently by one of my colleagues in the Department of Social Sciences at UC3M, Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca. Other challenges have to do with mutual respect—political tolerance—which is essential in a democracy. And there are many more challenges.

What advantages do you see in carrying out this research at the UC3M?

There is a truly excellent group of social scientists in the department I belong to. The quality of the seminars and of the research being carried out is at a level that would be considered excellent anywhere in the world. Also, the library and the resources on the Getafe campus facilitate the work of all the members of the academic community. My current work focuses empirically on a macro-level comparison between Spain and Portugal, and there is no other academic institution on the Iberian Peninsula that offers the benefits and convenience for research I have found at UC3M.

What other researchers at the UC3M do you collaborate with?

In the Department of Social Sciences, there are many researchers whose studies offer very important points of connection with my own work. I can’t mention all of them here, but keeping in mind the focus of my work, I must mention Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca and the important work he is doing on democracy within the context of globalization. I am sure that several contacts and conversations I am having with colleagues from the Department will be reflected in collaborative works in the future.