“It is important to create synergies between the university and the company in order to generate maximum value by transforming theoretical research into tangible innovation within the company, and Universia will provide an advanced technological environment, real use cases and a team of experts, both in the corporate world and in AI,” says José Manuel de la Chica, director of Generative AI at Banco Santander.

The resolution of the Ministry provides for the admission of 15 national and 7 international chairs, which will address 10 areas of knowledge: aeronautics and aerospace, agriculture, green algorithms, health sciences, sustainable development, data economy, responsible and ethical AI, music and arts, demographic challenge and language technologies.

The AImpuls天美传媒-Universia Chair, which will include a multidisciplinary representation of researchers from the University, experts in the field from the financial institution and other international scientists, aims to address the challenges of the exploitation of personal data by large technology companies and the ethical implications of data privacy. One of the objectives of its research programme is to create a new personal data economy that is transparent, fair, inclusive and responsible.

“This will make it possible to maintain and improve current economic incentives, while reducing the harmful impact on the most vulnerable people and communities, promoting a new and healthier productive economic fabric based on this new data economy that we intend to explore during the course of the chair. On the other hand, at IBiDat, we are immersed in a disruptive line of research, focused on developing models and algorithms linked to AI that are interpretable and unbiased. The results will be tested in the very stimulating collaboration we have with Universia”, says the head of the AImpulsa Chair, Rosa Elvira Lillo, a professor of Statistics and Operations Research at UC3M and director of the big data research institute IBidat (uc3m-Santander Big Data Institute).

According to the creators of this Chair, in the era of the digital economy in which we find ourselves, large technology companies are accumulating huge amounts of personal data, driving big profits and generating a new data economy, according to the creators of this Chair. An OECD study shows that in the United States alone, these data-based companies had a turnover of more than $60 billion in 2017. In Canada, the amount was around 1.4 billion dollars and in the European Union it was estimated at between 19 and 50 billion euros in 2016. “In parallel to this phenomenon, deep and growing concerns are emerging about privacy, ethics and fairness in the use of this data and in the algorithms that use it to learn and predict,” explains another of the researchers participating in the AImpuls天美传媒-Universia Chair, Rubén Cuevas, Associate Professor in UC3M's Telematics Engineering Department and deputy director of IBiDat.

That is why the AImpuls天美传媒-Universia Chair on Data Economy and Responsible Applied Artificial Intelligence for the Creation of Exponential Value proposes an initiative with an ambitious and advanced comprehensive and technical focus, according to the researchers. Specifically, they have the ambition to be at the forefront of innovation in the application of solutions to ensure interpretability and fairness in AI algorithms by developing advanced and large-scale models. To do this, they will use deep neural networks, reinforcement learning algorithms and natural language processing, as well as simulation models, mechanism design and experimentation of large social and economic systems.  

Their research programme also includes a novel economic analysis of the impact of applying responsible algorithms, with the aim of encouraging the adoption of this type of solution by big data and AI technology companies. Instead of using traditional approaches such as strict regulations or sanctions (whose results may be limited or even counterproductive in some complex scenarios being generated by the new data economy), the researchers propose to develop innovative and scalable economic incentives that encourage companies to adopt and promote responsible AI in the medium and long term. To do this, they will design economic models and mechanisms that take advantage of the most advanced techniques in game theory, mechanism design, economics and information theory and computer privacy to create systems that encourage the adoption of responsible AI, and also penalise the use of algorithms that are harmful to society.

“All of these challenges, and all those appearing on the horizon in relation to the new AI economy, will be continuously explored within the Chair, demonstrating once again that knowledge transfer is fundamental in industry, something we at Universia are firmly convinced of,” says De la Chica.

“At UC3M's IBiDat, we are convinced that the AImpulsa chair will provide significant developments in aspects of AI that have not been explored until now, which will provide more confidence throughout the debate around the use of these methodologies, since our purpose is to move towards a fairer, more explainable and more efficient AI,” concludes Lillo.

The research project led by Natalia Fabra, entitled "Socio-Economic Challenges and Opportunities of the Energy Transition: ENERGY-IN-TRANSITION", will be carried out over the next five years. Its main objective is to expand the frontiers of knowledge in the field of energy and environmental economics, addressing the new socio-economic challenges and opportunities that arise with the Energy Transition.

Its objectives include analyzing the design of electricity markets with a high penetration of renewable energies and pioneering research on the new regulation of green hydrogen. It will also delve into the distributional repercussions of climate and energy policies, providing solutions to avoid potentially regressive effects. Special attention will be paid to quantifying the socio-economic effects on the territory, such as the impacts on the labor market and demographics due to the closure of thermal power plants and the deployment of renewable energy investments. In addition, it will identify the causes of local opposition to new renewable plants and propose measures to increase their social acceptance. Finally, it will analyze the impact of the recent energy crisis on the adoption of solar self-consumption in households, and investigate the distributional implications of different options to promote it. As a result, the project will provide relevant conclusions for the implementation of climate and energy policies aimed at enhancing the efficiency and equity of the Energy Transition.

Methodologically, the project will use a combination of theoretical models, econometric techniques, simulation tools and surveys. It will develop new models on long-term contracting in the electricity market, apply advanced Machine Learning methods to create counterfactual scenarios for policy analysis, and design simulation tools to evaluate the interaction between various regulatory measures.

UC3M is one of the Spanish universities with the highest number of ERC grants, a commitment to the internationalization of EU research. Specifically, the University has already obtained 12 ERC projects (8 Starting Grants, 6 Consolidator Grants, 2 Proof of Concept  and 1 Advanced Grant) with an overall funding of almost 27 million euros. More information: /investigacion/ERC 

When asked about her research, Vanesa Guerrero explains that she would like the models and tools she develops to help with more informed and interpretable decision-making to be used by professionals in different fields and for them to be beneficial for their work. In this way, people could better understand why a mathematical model or algorithm decides, for example, whether or not to give someone a loan or what is the suitable dose of a certain medication depending on the patient's characteristics. 

“This project focuses on functional data, that is, data where for each observation there are one or more curves reflecting the evolution of certain characteristics over time [...] It is a methodological project that can have applications in fields as diverse as medicine, meteorology, demography and economics, among others”, says the researcher. In fact, “machine learning and artificial intelligence play a crucial role in the development of algorithms for data-based decision-making”, she concludes.

These L'Oréal and UNESCO prizes, which are focusing on the fields of physical-mathematical sciences, technology and engineering this year, aim to support this research work and bring women's leadership to the forefront of Spain's scientific field. The research projects have been chosen by a jury made up of scientific experts in the areas covered in this edition: María A. Blasco, director of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO, in its Spanish acronym); Pilar López Sancho, research lecturer in the Materials Theory and Simulation Department at the CSIC’s Madrid Institute of Materials Science; Nuria Oliver, co-founder and director of the ELLIS Alicante Foundation; and Mateo Valero, director of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (National Supercomputing Centre). 

The L'Oréal-UNESCO ‘For Women in Science’ programme has launched the careers of more than 4,100 female scientists under the age of 40 worldwide since it was created in 1998. In Spain, the programme has acknowledged the careers of 87 female scientists in total, to whom it has awarded grants worth over 1.3 million euros.

Vanesa Guerrero (Guadalcanal, Seville; 1989) has a Bachelor's degree (2012) and a PhD (2017) in Mathematics from the University of Seville. She later became a visiting lecturer in the Department of Statistics at UC3M, where she currently works, since July 2022, with a Juan de la Cierva contract. She has also carried out research stays at the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) and the École Polytechnique (France). Among her scientific achievements, she has been awarded the Ramiro Melendreras Prize from the Society of Statistics and Operations Research and the Ramiro Melendreras Foundation, the Vicent Caselles Prize from the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society and the BBVA Foundation, and the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize in the branch of Mathematics from the University of Seville. This new award for Vanesa “contributes to encouraging leadership and making my research visible, therefore helping to consolidate my scientific career. In addition, this award provides added motivation to continue in the long-distance race that research can sometimes be”.

In view of this situation, the MAPFRE Foundation's Ageingnomics Research Centre has published and presented “Housing and Pensions. A guide to monetising housing and improving your pension”, at UC3M's Madrid-Puerta de Toledo Campus, carried out by experts Juan Ángel Lafuente Luengo, professor of Financial Economics and Accounting at the UJI, and Pedro Serrano Jiménez, Associate Professor of Financial Economics and Accounting at UC3M. This publication aims to offer the elderly a simple and comprehensible tool so they can learn about the different options that exist to make their property profitable and provide liquidity without changing homes, as well as to discover the existence of insurance and financial products that improve their purchasing power.

During the presentation of the guide held at UC3M, its authors, together with the director of the Ageingnomic Research Centre, Juan Fernández Palacios, presented some of the options included in the document and addressed the importance of seniors being aware of such alternatives to complement public retirement benefits.

The guide points out that the latest available statistics indicate that a significant proportion of adults are facing their retirement with shortages. Currently, the average retirement pension in Spain stands at 1,438.20 euros, an amount that has increased compared to last year and which guarantees a basic level of sustenance, but is often insufficient to maintain the retired population's quality of life, especially considering the current economic situation and the fact that they will progressively need more resources to cover their dependency needs. Thus, housing monetisation options are presented as an effective solution to supplement the average pension.

Housing and pensions: alternatives for monetising housing

Selling or renting a property is the most common decision to obtain extra income in retirement by profiting from real estate assets. However, not all seniors have a second home to move to and, furthermore, 45% of the over-55s have no intention of relocating in the future, a trend that is growing with increasing age. For this reason, having additional resources that do not involve having to move, and that help to supplement the public pension, is essential for this group. Thus, the guide, in addition to discussing traditional alternatives such as retaining or transferring ownership, focuses on new monetisation alternatives.

“Taking into account that more than 8 out of 10 seniors own their own home, it is essential that they are aware that there are different insurance and financial products with which they can improve their purchasing power and, therefore, their standard of living during this stage of retirement. Through the monetisation of housing, real estate assets can be converted into liquid money and, as with pension plans or insurance, it is another instrument that seniors can use to supplement public retirement benefits,” says Juan Fernández Palacios.
 
To facilitate understanding of the different options available, the Ageingnomics Research Centre paper divides the new alternatives for monetising housing into two groups: those that involve a lifetime transfer of home ownership, and those that retain ownership.
 
In the first, the owner can obtain liquidity by selling the property during their lifetime, but retaining the right to reside in it for life. This is achieved through the transfer of ownership of the property in exchange for cash, while maintaining the right to reside in the property until death. Within this group are the sale of the bare ownership, reverse housing and real estate annuities.

In the second type of alternative, there is no transfer of ownership, but liquidity is obtained through a financial institution. Reverse mortgages and advance rent payments can be used to do this. This option is very useful for homeowners who want to protect the transfer of their property to their heirs. In this way, the property is retained by the owner over the age of 55 until their death, after which it will pass to their heirs. “These new ways of monetising housing expand the range of possibilities both for homeowners, in order to finance their retirement using their real estate assets, and for investors, increasing the set of investment assets available on the market,” says Pedro Serrano Jiménez, co-author of the study and a lecturer in UC3M's Business Economics Department. 

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These results indicate that “the affective endowment that family firms prioritize (known as socio-emotional wealth (SEW)) which goes beyond the organizational goal of value maximization (without forgetting financial goals) seems to have a positive effect on employees’ welfare. Therefore, family firms provide a work environment aligned with the desire to offer employment security,” states one of the study's authors, María José Sánchez Bueno, professor at the Department of Business Administration (UC3M).

Considering the role played by family control and political risk in terms of employment security, this research provides an integrative perspective to explore internal and external factors that may affect workers’ protection in potentially “undesirable” conditions such as the elimination of positions. In particular, family businesses appear to be less likely to make decisions such as employee downsizing because doing so threatens their socio-emotional wealth (workforce reductions evoke negative perceptions such as lack of trust or the weakening of loyalty in remaining employees). “Our study reveals that family control has an important effect on job security, and this effect may be more critical under situations of political turbulence,” says professor Sánchez Bueno.

This line of research focuses on job security, which, according to these scholars, is a key issue for our society as the ability to cover essential expenses depends on enjoying lifetime employment. “Even during good economic periods, companies may reduce their head count because employee downsizing has become a worldwide phenomenon aimed at reducing costs and improving efficiency, for example”, concludes María José Sánchez Bueno.

Bibliographic reference: Gomez-Mejia, L.R., Sanchez-Bueno, M. J., Miroshnychenko, I., Wiseman, R. M., Muñoz-Bullón, F., De Massis, A. (2023). Family control, political risk and employment security: A cross-national study. Journal of Management Studies, forthcoming. Open Access.  

To carry out this academic accreditation they use the EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), which assesses overall quality and also takes into account the level of internationalisation. This accreditation can be granted for three or five years.

In December 2023 the Membership Review Committee admitted 24 new members, including UC3M.

The EFMD is made up of a network of 30,000 management professionals from academia, business, public services and consultancies. This foundation acts as a forum for information, research, networking and the discussion on innovation and best practices.

Obesity does affect academic performance

The report block dedicated to the skills and abilities of adolescents addressed issues such as the effects of the presence of students with a migrant background and cohesion in the classroom or the impact of childhood obesity. In this regard, the study by Loyola University researcher María José Vázquez concludes that students with a migrant background are not particularly different from the rest of their peers in the same circumstances, except in two aspects: they have a greater preference for risk (they are less prudent) and they are more altruistic.

On the other hand, regarding the impact of childhood obesity on the academic performance of secondary school students, the presented study has revealed that obesity negatively affects academic performance and cognitive skills, especially in the case of girls.

Friendships, enmities and relational networks

As for the type of friendships and enmities within the classroom, the study by Anxo Sánchez, from UC3M, indicates that "two students will be friends with greater or lesser probability depending on the friendships and enmities they have in common; in fact, a quantity can be defined, which is like a sum of friendships and enmities, that allows us to predict with a probability of nearly 90% whether two students are friends or not". In addition, it has been found that the fact that personal attitudes are more or less prosocial is not related to making friends, which speaks to the fundamental role that social context plays in building relationships. 

On the other hand, Pablo Brañas Garza, professor of economics at Loyola University, has analysed whether young people correctly predict who their friends and enemies are. The results show that students with high cognitive abilities are better at predicting who their friends and enemies are. It has also been concluded that those who are in the peripheral areas of the relationship networks are perfectly aware of their position in the network, while those in central positions don't know it.

UC3M has also studied the temporal evolution of friendships in a specific institute, where data has been collected on eight different occasions over three years. The results confirm the existence of Dunbar circles in the structure of relationships, that is, there are small groups of best friends that are more stable than ordinary friends, and explain the different nature of enmities, which are far more volatile and less frequent. They also show that only 60% of relationships are reciprocal, a very stable number across the different data collections.

Finally, researchers from the University of Barcelona have studied the characteristics that cause a student to be chosen as a partner for carrying out work. Not surprisingly, boys choose boys and girls choose girls. However, there is another essential element: boys and girls with better grades are always chosen first to form the groups, unlike students who suffer bullying, who are not chosen.

Work is currently underway on a platform so that schools can access these studies, according to Tere García, director of the Department of Quantitative Methods at the University of Granada, who presented this means of transferring results to society. The event ended with a speech from María Castro, Professor of Research and Diagnostic Methods in Education at the Complutense University of Madrid, who addressed the social implications of this type of study and its results for education. 

The results presentation event, held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, was attended by the Cotec Foundation's Director of Education and Training, Ainara Zubillaga, and the Professor of Behavioural Economics at Loyola University, Pablo Brañas Garza, responsible for presenting the results, as well as the researchers responsible for the different studies.

Teens Lab, a consortium for adolescent behavioural research

The studies carried out by around twenty researchers from Loyola University, the University of Barcelona, the 天美传媒, the University of Granada and the University of the Basque Country correspond to the results of various projects funded in public research calls by the State Research Agency, the Andalusian Regional Government, the European Union, the Basque Government, the Andalusian Agency for International Development Cooperation and the María Maeztu Unit of Excellence.

All this work has led to the creation of this laboratory for the study of adolescent behaviour in our country. With the slogan "improving our young people's education with data", this consortium will make a qualitative leap in data collection to definitively confirm the results, obtain new conclusions with larger samples and move on to the next phase of their practical application, entering the field of interventions to improve different aspects of adolescents' well-being and performance in schools.

In the future, we hope to be able to work with hundreds of schools located in areas with different income levels and geographical locations, for which it would be necessary to establish a stable research team, with data management and processing staff, as well as software that allows, on the one hand, massive and simultaneous data collection, as well as the return of results to the schools, so that they can be used by teachers, tutors and counsellors. It is also essential to have sufficient computing resources to be able to apply advanced machine learning techniques to the entire volume of data available.

References: see all references to published scientific articles and all information about TeensLab here:  

This ranking of master's degrees in Management assesses, among other aspects, the average salary of graduates three years after completing the degree programme, career progression, value for money of the master's degree, employability of graduates and percentage of international teachers and students, among other parameters.

UC3M’s Master's Degree in Management, taught at UC3M's Madrid-Puerta de Toledo Campus, is a one-year programme designed to provide business administration skills and knowledge to young graduates with diverse backgrounds and limited management experience. "The Master's Degree in Management has been ranked 35th out of the top 100 programmes worldwide, but it is worth noting that this degree achieves even better positions in some key categories analysed in the ranking. For example, for the criterion 'student career progression', our programme ranks tenth worldwide, while in the category of 'percentage salary increase' it ranks eighth," says the director of the master's degree programme, Eduardo Melero, Associate Professor of Management in UC3M's Business Economics Department.

It also has a leading position with its own degree programmes

A degree from UC3M's School of Continuing Education has also achieved a very prominent position in this Financial Times ranking. Specifically, the UC3M-ESCP Master’s Degree in Management is ranked 4th worldwide. Focused at a European level, this degree offers the opportunity to study in up to four countries for two years, with options ranging from ESCP Europe's six European campuses to 70 partners around the world. "Those who study this Master's degree have the opportunity to project themselves into the role of a manager and gain an overview of the challenges faced by international companies and institutions. In this sense, the internships that are carried out in various companies are key to professional network development and accessing the best employment options in the future," says the co-director of the master's degree, Lluís Santamaría, Associate Professor of Accounting in UC3M's Business Economics Department.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2024 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

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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.

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University and business: the multiplying win-win effect

The Chair is currently oriented towards a strategic topic for companies, in that diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) policies and the committent to inclusive leadership occupy a prominent place on the business agenda. Therefore,  organisations are increasingly aware that having inclusive leaders, who value and take advantage of workforce diversity and all stakeholders, allows them to understand society’s needs, making more conscious, responsible and sustainable decisions.

The added value of this initiative is based on the fact that university-business collaboration produces an indisputable symbiosis. Firstly, the University will offer students experiences and learning that will train them in innovative visions of diversity, equity and inclusion and leadership – fundamental pillars of the business world –, while companies will have the opportunity to be closer to the source of knowledge, drawing on university research in order to continue progressing in their strategies. In this way, the implementation of this Chair will produce a win-win effect with great potential to accelerate and provide greater specificity to leadership and diversity policies, amplifying results and progressing in the proposed objectives. For its development, a multidisciplinary team will be created from the academic and business spheres, made up of highly reputable professionals, who will contribute different perspectives and experiences.

The UC3M Rector, Ángel Arias, emphasised that the creation of this Chair allows for the creation of a “custom” ecosystem of interaction and collaboration between UC3M, the CEOE, the CEOE Foundation and the Adecco Foundation, which implies the development of a set of actions that will benefit all of the institutions involved. He also added that “leadership and diversity represent one of the fundamental and transversal pillars of the strategy of business organisations today. The Chair will serve as a platform to develop research activities of common interest, will facilitate the development of knowledge and excellence and will have a social impact”.

The professor who will direct the Chair, Carmen Paz-Aparicio, thanked the signatories for all of their support and trust and pointed out that "it is a source of joy for UC3M and, of course, for me that the main entity representing companies in Spain, the CEOE, shares the interest in the development and execution of this initiative, as well as the achievement of its goals, committing itself to its support and promotion”. Finally, she added that "this Chair on Leadership and Diversity, framed within the CEOPorlaDiversity (CEOForDiversity) Alliance, is a dream come true, working and collaborating directly with the leaders of the most important companies in our country, which constitutes an excellent platform for knowledge transfer between the university, the business world and our society".

Meanwhile, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, emphasised the importance of "continuing to make progress in the creation of spaces for collaboration and in the alliance between the business and academic worlds, so that companies can give the best of themselves to society, in this case combining research, leadership and inclusion as gateways towards progress".

Along the same lines, the president of the CEOE Foundation, Fátima Báñez, has assured that this chair "represents another step in the CEO for Diversity Alliance" and "an investment in excellence, in science and in talent to grow from rigour and keep this project at the forefront in Europe". "One more example that shows that companies think big, bringing business and the university closer together for Spanish society," she added.

Enrique Sánchez said: "This initiative is an excellent opportunity to accelerate the much-needed rapprochement between the business world and the university environment. By uniting the strengths of both agents, we promote an environment of collaboration and mutual enrichment that will provide a more academic approach to the diversity and leadership policies that we have been proposing and developing in the Alliance since 2019, while at the same time boosting the education and training of future professionals in such strategic and relevant dimensions for companies. The fact that the #CEOPorLaDiversity (#CEOForDiversity) Alliance is made up of 91 committed CEOs and their operational teams, gives a high profile to this Chair, which will be able to advance with its goals, sponsored by people who believe in diversity and who strive to exercise inclusive leadership".

Research, training and knowledge transfer

The Leadership and Diversity Chair will be structured around three main lines of action: research activities, training activities and initiatives for the transfer and dissemination of the knowledge generated.

In terms of research, an Ideas Laboratory will be set up to identify strategic study areas, promoting the preparation of reports and studies, research projects that will lead to articles in scientific publications, as well as the organisation of national and/or international congresses, where work focused on leadership and diversity will be presented.

In terms of training, activities will be developed to train students and teachers in leadership and diversity. Work will also be done to improve the skills of business leaders in this field. To this end, training scholarships will be promoted for the completion of doctoral theses related to the Chair, awards will be created for research work, postgraduate programmes or training courses for management teams and business leaders.

In addition, among other activities, competitions to generate ideas will be promoted among students, with the mission of improving leadership and diversity in companies. Finally, the knowledge generated in the Chair will be shared through transfer and outreach activities such as conferences, round tables, press releases and media calls, etc. The Chair will also create its own website with different profiles on social networks, which will be managed by a scholarship holder, responsible for its coordination and management.

About UC3M

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2024 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

About the #CEOPorLaDiversidad Alliance

This Alliance, led by the Adecco Foundation and the CEOE Foundation, aims to unite the CEOs of the main companies in Spain around a common and innovative vision of diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), acting as drivers and ambassadors to help accelerate the development of strategies that contribute to business excellence, talent competitiveness in Spain and the reduction of inequality and exclusion in Spanish society.

This ranking of Master’s degrees in finance analyses students’ career and salary progression, the programme’s international projection, the diversity of student and teacher backgrounds and the value for money, among other parameters. In order to be included in this ranking, Master’s degrees must be taught full-time, have a minimum of 30 students and be accredited by AACSB or Equis.

“Although in global terms, the University Master’s Degree in Finance ranks 24th, its great value in some of the categories analysed in the ranking should be highlighted. In the case of the ‘student career progression’ criteria, it ranks fourth worldwide; and in the ‘value for money’ category, which measures the relationship between the cost of the programme and the average salary obtained by graduates within 3 years, this UC3M programme ranks 21st worldwide”, says the Head of the Degree Programme, Jesús David Moreno Muñoz, from UC3M’s Department of Business Economics.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2023 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M is the first university in Europe to obtain ACEEU dual accreditation for its contribution and impact on the industrial and social fabric, and it also has other accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes.

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This is the second time that the UC3M Department of Economics has received this distinction, after the one obtained in the 2014 call.

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In the area of marketing, UC3M holds the top position in Spain among public universities and is ranked 40th worldwide. The world’s best master’s degrees according to the QS 2023 ranking are those of HEC Paris, ESSEC Business School and Imperial College Business School.

The 2023 QS Business Master’s Ranking features the world’s best schools in five categories: Business Analytics, Finance, Management, Marketing and Supply Chain Management. It includes 500 master’s degree programmes taught in 40 countries, which must meet a series of requirements: they must be carried out face-to-face, full-time and have at least 15 students, as well as being internationally accredited. Data obtained through three surveys is taken into account in order to rank them: QS Global Employer Survey, QS Global Academic Survey and another survey for institutions on aspects such as employability, student outcomes, return on investment, leadership, students and teachers.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is among the best universities in the world for employability, according to the THE Global University Employability Ranking. UC3M has numerous accreditations and quality awards, such as the EUR-ACE seal in the field of engineering or the AACSB accreditation in business and finance programmes, among others. It has exchange agreements with universities in 60 countries on 5 continents and is a member of international European networks of excellence such as YERUN (Young European Research Universities) or YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe).

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The laudatio on Zoya Popovic will be given by the lecturer Luis Enrique García, from the University’s Department of Signal and Communications Theory. Ehud Kalai’s laudatio will be given by the lecturer José Luis Ferreira from the UC3M Department of Economics. 

Honoris Causa Profiles

Zoya Popovic holds the Lockheed Martin Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder (USA), where she has been a Distinguished Research Professor since 2015. She received her bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Belgrade (Serbia) and her PhD from Caltech in California (USA). She has been a lecturer at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) or the Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space (ISAE) in Toulouse (France), as well as holding a Chair of Excellence at UC3M during the 2018/19 academic year. She has graduated over 65 PhD students and currently advises 20 PhD students. Her research interests include high-efficiency power amplifiers and transmitters, high-performance microwave and millimetre-wave circuits for communications and radar, medical microwave applications, quantum sensing and metrology and wireless power. She has received two IEEE MTT Microwave Prizes for best scientific journal papers, the White House and US National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellow Award, the Issac Koga Gold Medal from the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), the Terman Award from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) Research Award. She was elected as a foreign member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006 and this year, 2022, she has become part of the US National Academy of Engineering. She has a physicist husband and three daughters.

Ehud Kalai is Professor Emeritus of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences at Northwestern University. He is a prominent mathematical economist known for his contributions to game theory and its relation to economics, social choice, computer science and operations research. Born in Palestine in 1942, Ehud Kalai moved to the USA in 1963, where he received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 and a PhD, also in mathematics, from Cornell University in 1972. After a period as an assistant lecturer at Tel Aviv University, he moved to Northwestern University, where he held the James J. O’Connor Chair of Decision and Game Sciences from 1975 to 2017. In addition, Professor Kalai held the Oskar Morgenstern Chair at New York University in 1991. Throughout his career, Professor Kalai has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Sherman Fairchild Prize from the California Institute of Technology in 1993 and the status of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Paris Dauphine University in 2010. In addition, in 2013 he received the Game Theory Society prize for work on the interrelationship between Game Theory and Computer Science, which bears his name (Kalai Prize) and in 2017, the Israel Science Foundation organised a seminar in his honour at Tel Aviv University. Professor Kalai has published more than 60 papers in high impact journals, as well as 14 chapters in books, which have obtained more than 10,000 citations. His academic contributions can be divided into different fields: cooperative and non-cooperative game theory, social choice theory and computer science.

This ranking of Master’s degrees in finance analyses students’ career and salary progression, the programme’s international projection, the diversity of student and teacher backgrounds and the value for money, among other parameters. In order to be included in this ranking, Master’s degrees must be taught full-time, have a minimum of 30 students and be accredited by AACSB or Equis.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that excels in research, teaching and innovation. It is among the best universities in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2022 and among the best universities for the employability of its graduates, according to the latest edition of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global University Employability Ranking. In 2017, UC3M became the first Spanish public university to obtain accreditation from AACSB, an international organisation which recognises the world’s best educational centres for their teaching quality and research in the areas of business administration, accounting, finance and marketing.

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Daniel Peña Sánchez de Rivera (Madrid, 1948) has a degree in Industrial Engineering (1970) and a PhD in Industrial Engineering (1976) from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Polytechnic University of Madrid) (UPM), a degree in Sociology and Statistics from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Complutense University of Madrid) and an ITP in Business Administration from Harvard University. He has been Professor of Statistics at UC3M since 1990 and Vice-Chancellor from 2007 to 2015. He has also been a professor at the UPM and Visiting Full Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Chicago. He has been editor of the Spanish Statistical Magazine, president of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research and president of the European statistical society ECAS (European Courses in Advanced Statistics), among other positions. He has supervised 30 doctoral theses and has published fifteen books and more than 200 research articles on statistics, econometrics, quality and their applications. Associate Editor of several international journals, he has received national and international research awards, such as the Youden Prize in 2006 for the best article published in Technometrics, Engineer of the Year by the College of Industrial Engineers of Madrid in 2011, the Jaime I Prize for research in Economics in 2011 and the National Statistics Award in 2020. He is an honorary member of prestigious international associations, such as The Institute of Mathematical Statistics and The American Statistical Association.

The Spanish Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences is a public institution dedicated to the study and research of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and geology, and their applications, as well as their promotion for the benefit of society.

However, this transformation has not been carried out using traditional regulatory instruments, such as Directives or Regulations, but using technical reports drawn up by experts at European institutions outside of the institutionalised channels of administrative power. These instruments have succeeded in gaining enough relevance to become profound legislative reforms. Research by a lecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Social and Private International Law, Daniel Pérez del Prado, included in the book “El impacto social de la gobernanza económica europea” (Tirant lo Blanch, 2021), analyses documentation emanating from European economic governance from 2011 to 2019. 

According to Pérez del Prado, “the main conclusions of the study are devastating. There is clear evidence that austerity policies, that have been implemented since 2010, were one of the factors that explain Europe’s relapse into the crisis, its prolonged time period and its direct effects on social protection systems and policies,” he says. “Due to drastic cuts (in pensions, unemployment, health care, etc.), they did not act as social dampening mechanisms. Moreover, structural reforms were aimed at labour markets, not other markets,” he adds. Although, he explains, “the economic policies imposed as a form of greater coercion through bailouts had a large impact on the level of well-being and working conditions in most of the European and, in particular, Spanish population.”

Furthermore, this research delves into the justification provided in order to promote these measures. “The social law model that European institutions propose to Member States is clearly orthodox, it avoids the traditional role of social law and is incompatible. It is assumed that experts at the European institutions are the only ones who are able to understand what is right for their citizens and, therefore, they are responsible for formulating lines of action to follow. However, many of the measures that were promoted were painful, lacked the necessary contrast with other approaches or perspectives, and did not include a cost-benefit analysis,” the author notes.

The study concludes with an analysis of future policies and their implementation.  “We wonder whether activating the general exception clause in the Stability and Growth Pact, and other decisions (such as the SURE Regulation or the Recovery Plan for Europe, Next Generation EU), will cause a real change in the cycle or if it is an exception at a very specific time,” concludes Daniel Pérez del Prado.

Bibliography: Perez del Prado, D. (2021). Impacto Social de la Gobernanza Económica Europea. Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia. ISBN: 978-84-1378-930-9.

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Jan Leonard Stuhler is currently a senior lecturer at the UC3M’s Department of Economics. He received his PhD in Economics from University College London (United Kingdom) and completed his bachelor's degree in Economics at the University of Bonn (Germany). His research area is applied microeconomics, namely labour and public economy. Based on microeconometric methods, his main lines of research address issues related to inequality and migration and its effects on successive generations.

This award is one of the Community of Madrid’s 2021 Research Awards, which honour biochemist Margarita Salas, physicist Miguel Catalán, and philosopher Julián Marías, recognising their intellectual trajectories and contributions to knowledge.

The study was presented at a ceremony held in the Auditorium on the UC3M’s Madrid Puerta de Toledo Campus. This event was attended by the UC3M's President, Juan Romo, the President of the Social Council, Matías Rodríguez-Inciarte, the Deputy Counsel for Universities, Science and Innovation in the Community of Madrid, Fidel Rodríguez Batalla, and the Vice President for Internationalisation and European University at the UC3M, Matilde Pilar Sánchez, among others.

According to data contained in the report, the UC3M’s international activities in different institutional areas are a driving force for other agents that generate expenditure in the Community of Madrid, such as international undergraduate and postgraduate students, their families and friends who visit them, as well as people who attend scientific and technical events organised by the University.

This study focused on data from the 2018/2019 academic year, when the UC3M had a total of 22,861 students. The percentage of international students represents around 20% of the UC3M’s undergraduate students. This figure increases to 35% for Master’s students and is more than 40% for PhD students.

77.8% of the funds contributed to the local economy in Madrid by the UC3M’s internationalisation activities and their agents comes from students’ families. In turn, the European Union (EU) contributes 18.5% (17,901,230.80 Euros), while the Community of Madrid contributes 1.7% (1,642,183.90 Euros). Finally, private companies contribute 1.3% (1,229,395.10 Euros).

Overall, in terms of their economic impact, the internationalisation activities undertaken by the UC3M and its agents during the 2018/2019 academic year increased the Community of Madrid’s Gross Value Added (GVA) by 84,663,065 Euros and generated 1,139 full-time jobs. In this sense, every Euro the UC3M spent on its internationalisation activities, through the University’s and its agents capacity for mobilisation, increased the CM’s income (in terms of GVA) by 4.24 Euros.

In terms of the economic impact on the Community of Madrid produced by the UC3M and its agents’ internationalisation activities during the 2018/2019 academic year, students and their visiting friends and family generated 78.7% of the total increase in income and 77% of the full-time jobs were generated by these international activities.

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Study on the economic impact of internationalisation activities at UC3M

Antonio Cabrales Goitia is a professor at the UC3M’s Department of Economics. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of California, San Diego. He was a professor at the University College London and the Pompeu Fabra University. He is an associate researcher at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), executive vice-president of the European Economic Association and former president of the Spanish Economic Association and was an honorary member of both associations. His main line of research focuses on social media economics, design and mechanisms, learning and evolution games, experimental economics, and behavioural and industrial organisation.

The other winners were: the Basic Research Prize was awarded to astrophysicist Alicia Verde, for her studies into the origin and composition of the universe; the Medical Research Prize was awarded to immunobiologist Eduard Batllé, for his contributions to colorectal cancer; the Protection of Nature Award was awarded to biologist Fernando Valladares, for his contributions to understanding how forest plants interact with each other; the New Technology Prize was awarded to engineer Nuria Oliver, who is leading a group of experts in epidemiological models; and the Entrepreneur Prize was awarded to Benito Jiménez, founder of the company Congelados de Navarra, for his commitment to the environment and his local producers.

The Rey Jaime I Awards were created in 1989 with the aim of bringing together scientific and business enterprises, through studies and research, to promote scientific development, research, and entrepreneurship in Spain. These prizes are awarded with the largest monetary amount in Spain, 100,000 Euros for each category, and with the commitment to reinvest part of the prize amount into research and entrepreneurship in Spain. The juries are made up of eighty people, including more than twenty Nobel Prize winners.

The study was carried out on a sample of 4,134 companies between 1993 and 2016. “Our results show that family businesses are more reluctant to reduce their number of employees”, states one of the researchers, Maria Jose Sanchez-Bueno, associate professor at the UC3M’s Department of Business Administration and deputy director of the Institute for the Development of Enterprises and Markets (INDEM).

Export and staff reduction

This research also attempts to explain why, under certain circumstances such as a company increasing its international presence through exports, there is a lower likelihood of family businesses reducing their workforce. In particular, higher levels of sales via export to markets that are geographically close to the family firm’s country of origin would further reduce the likelihood of workforce reductions within the business, as such job cuts would have a greater negative impact on the company (e.g.,in terms of loss of reputation and credibility in their home market).

In contrast, when family firms target their exports at countries that are geographically further away from their national market, the adverse impact of workforce reductions on the company lessens. “Our results reveal that the negative effects on family businesses that result from reducing the workforce are less apparent when the company is exporting on a more global level. Specifically, when exports are aimed at markets that are geographically further away”, conclude the authors.

Bibliography: Cirillo, A., Muñoz-Bullón, F.,Sanchez-Bueno, M.J.,Sciascia, S. (2020). Employee downsizing and sales internationalization strategy in family firms. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 100354. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfbs.2020.100354

This project was carried out during the final quarter of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 health crisis and its very present economic and social consequences, therefore, it will be interesting to compare whether these results will be maintained once the pandemic has passed, according to the authors of the paper.

The UC3M researchers involved in this project are Antonio Cabrales, professor in the Department of Economics, and Anxo Sánchez, professor in the Department of Mathematics. “The study was triggered by the need to understand the population’s real preferences in regard to public expenditure. This isn’t an easy feat. For example, if you think about how many people say their favourite television programmes are the documentaries on La 2. When you compare this data with actual viewing figures, you realise that this isn’t the case. Surveys are needed that are compatible with people’s real motivations and take the cognitive complexity of the task into account,” says Antonio Cabrales.

An innovative methodology was used to carry out this project, combining a demoscopic survey (on a large representative sample of the Spanish population) with an economically motivated experiment using behavioural economic techniques. The results show a very high level of consistency between what the public say when asked for their opinion and what they do in an experiment that they can earn money from.

“The experiment motivated by economic gain confirms the results of surveys conducted using standard methodology, but it also provides interesting results that the surveys did not highlight,” notes Anxo Sánchez.

This jury selected Daniel Peña as the winner of the first edition of the award, highlighting his role as a creator of new statistical methods that can be applied to economics, history, medicine and the environment, as well as for being one of the most recognised researchers in this field at both a national and international level. His contributions to the modelling and prediction of time series sets have been utilised, extended and widely used by many authors. In particular, the model he developed with George Box: “the Peña-Box model or Exact Dynamic Factor Model”.

Daniel Peña Sánchez de Rivera (Madrid, 1948) has a degree in Industrial Engineering (1970) and a PhD in Industrial Engineering (1976) from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM, in its Spanish acronym), a Diploma in Sociology and Statistics from the Complutense University of Madrid and an MBA in Business Administration from Harvard University. He has been a professor of Statistics at the UC3M since 1990 and was President between 2007 and 2015. He was also a professor at the UPM and a Visiting Full Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the University of Chicago. He was the director of the Spanish Statistical Journal, president of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research and president of the ECAS (European Courses in Advanced Statistics) European Statistics Society, among others. He has supervised 30 doctoral theses and has published fifteen books and more than 200 research articles about Statistics, Econometrics, Quality and their applications. Associate Editor of several international journals, he has received national and international research awards, such as the Youden Award in 2006 for the best article published in Technometrics, Engineer of the Year from the College of Industrial Engineers of Madrid and the James I Award for Economic research in 2011. He has been elected as a Fellow of prestigious international associations, such as The Institute of Mathematical Statistics and The American Statistical Association.

The National Statistics Award is convened annually for Spanish experts whose scientific work and input constitutes an eminent contribution to the advancement of Statistics, recognised internationally and regardless of the country where it was carried out. The INE’s collaboration with the scientific and academic world is essential for the development of synergies that favour a high-quality statistical production, adapted to new technical developments and the challenges of a "datified" society.

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.

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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 addition to the quality and variety of training programmes, the ranking also takes into account factors such as graduates’ salary increase and participants’ satisfaction. In order to obtain the classification, the British publication takes an average of the five main classifications undertaken throughout the year (MBA, EMBA, Master in Management, Open Executive Education and Custom Programmes).

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in teaching, research and innovation. It features among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking. In 2017, the UC3M became the first Spanish public university to obtain the AACSB accreditation, an international organisation that recognises the best educational centres in the world for their teaching and research quality in business administration, accounting, finance and marketing.

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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 research team assumes that the crisis is affecting different sectors and agents in a very unbalanced manner, in a situation that is enormously damaging for many, but in which there are also other sectors and agents that are benefiting, leading to a big relocation shock which policies should help accommodate. To this effect, they will use dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models integrated with epidemiological and technological change models, as a way to incorporate  heterogeneity in the demand and supply sides of the Spanish economy. Their main goal is to gather quantitative evidence that allows policy makers to adopt the most effective measures in this or any future crises.

The projects chosen in this special call for the BBVA Foundation’s Scientific Research Team Support Programme will explore different aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus, the pathogen that caused the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on different levels. In total, 20 projects involving more than 400 researchers have been promoted in the fields of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, Biomedicine, Ecology and Veterinary Medicine, Economics and Social Sciences, and Humanities.

This ranking of Masters in Management assesses economic investment, career progress, salary, and the employability of students within three months of finishing their programme, among other things.

UC3M is a Spanish public university, which excels in teaching, research, and innovation. It is ranked among the top 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 under 50 ranking. In 2017, the UC3M became the first Spanish public university to obtain the AACSB accreditation, an international organisation that recognises the best educational centres in the world for teaching quality and research in Management, Accounting, Finance, and Marketing.

The masters in finance ranking analyzes the career and salary progress of alumni, international reach, student and faculty diversity, and value for money, among other parameters.

UC3M is a Spanish public university that stands out for its teaching, research and innovation.  It is ranked amount the best 35 universities in the world in the QS Top 50 under 50 ranking. In 2017 UC3M became the first Spanish public university to obtain accreditation from AACSB, an international organization which recognizes the top centers of higher learning worldwide in teaching and research quality in the areas of business administration, accounting, finance and marketing.

“Our study is a first step towards an analysis of the impact of the pandemic from the job offer point of view. Future research may complement this by examining the impact on job demand, the decline in consumption or the supply-chain effects”, explains one of the researchers, Warn N. Lekfuangfu, professor at the UC3M’s Department of Economics. 

This research focuses on Thailand as a case study, but the findings must be relevant for other countries with similar labour market structures, especially those in which a large portion of the population are self-employed and there is a poor social net for labour protection. The findings can provide useful insights for policymakers and leaders in charge of labour and economic management and who are tasked with de-escalation planning, in order to balance pandemic containment and the associated economic burdens. 

According to researchers, the group of workers who are most likely to be proportionally affected by the health crisis are precisely one of the most vulnerable; those who have less income. They have also observed that this occurs because, in many cases, in this type of work (in sectors such as agriculture, construction or manufacturing) it is not possible for the workers to work remotely and earn an income. “Without adequate government intervention to support income or employment for the poor, the adverse effect of COVID-19 could worsen income inequality in the population”, indicated one of the authors, Suphanit Piyapromdee, of the Department of Economics at University College London.

The researchers also found that low income workers, such as farmers and construction workers, tend to work in jobs that require less physical proximity to other people at work than higher income workers, such as office workers or schoolteachers. “Our analysis suggests that workers in jobs which cannot be adapted to work from home, but do not require frequent physical contact with others, should be allowed to return to their workplaces first. This happens to one-third of low-income workers,” states Nada Wasi, of the Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research at the Bank of Thailand. She added that “On the other hand, those who usually work in close physical proximity to others, but whose jobs are well-suited to work from home, may be the last to return to normalcy”.

Researchers have also found differences in couples’ jobs based on their income. According to PonpojePorapakkarm, of GRIPS, “couples in low-income households are more likely to have similar occupations and are highly concentrated in jobs which cannot be adapted to work from home. Whereas high income workers have a lower correlation between husband and wife occupations.” The study has found that 60% of couples in low income households have similar occupations, whereas this only occurs in 20% of high-income households.

Bibliography: Lekfuangfu, W., Piyapromdee, S., Porapakkarm, P., Wasi, N. (2020). Covid Economics: Vetted and Real-Time Papers. New Implications of Job Task Requirements and Spouse's Occupational Sorting'. Volume 12, 2020, (May 1st, 2020), page 87-103.

中文翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The number of places on the program is limited. Each year, ESCP will elect ten students and UC3M will select a total of five students. In both cases, the selection will be made based on the students’ academic qualifications, motivation and language level (in Spanish, English and French).

This new Dual Bachelor’s Degree is a four-year program which is taught in three countries. The route for each student will be slightly different depending on their enrolment. UC3M students will complete their first year at the university, they’ll split their second year between UC3M and the ESCP campus in Madrid. During their third year, students will study at the ESCP campus in Paris and their final year will be completed at the ESCP campus in Berlin. On the other hand, students from the ESCP Business School will complete their first year at the ESCP campus in either London or Paris. Their second year will be split between UC3M and the ESCP campus in Madrid. In their third year, they will choose to study at the ESCP campus in either Berlin or Paris; and their entire fourth year will be completed at UC3M.

About ESCP Business School

The ESCP Business School was founded in 1819. The School provides training in responsible leadership, with an open approach and based on European multiculturalism. There are six campuses in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin and Warsaw. The ESCP values excellence, singularity, creativity and diversity. Each year ESCP accepts 6300 students and 5000 managers from 120 nationalities. Its force resides in its numerous business training programs, both general and specialised (Bachelor’s, Masters, MBA, Executive MBA, PhD and executive education), all of which include a multi-campus experience.

About UC3M

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which excels in teaching, research and innovation. It ranks 34^th globally in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking and is featured 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 participating in the Erasmus Programme. It has more than 870 agreements with universities from 56 countries, among which are some of the best in the world, according to Shanghai Rankings’ Academic Ranking of World Universities. 20% of the 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 and an AACSB accreditation in Business and Finance programmes, among others.

The UC3M’s Joint Degree in Science and Data Engineering and Telecommunication Technologies is aimed at students interested in data sciences and artificial intelligence and the technologies that support them, such as programming in different languages and environments, digital business models, data cyber security and telecommunications, as well as cloud solutions for IT and storage, among others. These studies offer the student a wide view of applications in the field of data analysis and the secure storage thereof. Both degrees are based on two instrumental disciplines, maths and IT, and they share some common roots in the statistic processing of information. The Degree is taught in a bilingual format, having specific lab classes for practising in smaller groups and offering the possibility of undertaking internships with the leading companies in the sector.

The UC3M’s Joint Degree in Physical Engineering and Industrial Technology Engineering is aimed at students who wish to participate in the creation, design and implementation of the technology of the future, both in research centres and high level international technology companies. To do so, they will learn the basic principles of Classic and Modern Physics, Chemistry and Biology as well as the application thereof in well established areas of Engineering, such as Mechanics, Electronics, Electricity and Automation, as well as in other areas where scientific and technological developments advance jointly such as Nanotechnology, Quantum Computing and Biomaterials. The degree is taught in a bilingual format, having specific lab classes for practising in smaller groups and offering the possibility of undertaking internships with the leading companies in the sector. It also allows direct access to the Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering, which enables the regulated profession of Industrial Engineering to be exercised.

New international joint degree

The UC3M’s Joint Degree in Business Administration and Management (ADE, in its Spanish acronym) and ESCP Business School’s Bachelor in Management is aimed at students with a high level in languages, who wish to undertake ambitious training and international experience to recognise the necessary tools to be able to manage any business in a global manner. This new joint degree is a 4 year programme which is taught in 3 different countries: students will study on either the London or Paris ESCP campus during the first year; the second year is split between the UC3M (first semester) and ESCP Business School (second semester on the campus based in Madrid), the third year can be studied on the Paris or Berlin ESCP campus and the entirety of the fourth year at the UC3M. The admission requirements for the 15 places to be offered (10 for the ESCP and 5 for the UC3M) are focused on the students’ academic marks, their motivation and their language level (Spanish, English and French).

The UC3M is a Spanish public university which 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 Shanghai Rankings’ Academic Ranking of World Universities, can be found. 20% of 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 and AACSB accreditation in the Business and Finance programmes, among others.

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The main problem with this type of bacteria is its presence in some foods. The pathogenic versions of E. coli are commonly found in cattle. From there it can enter the food chain when poor hygiene procedures exist related to premises, utensils or food handling. Poorly cooked meat, unpasteurised dairy products, contaminated and poorly washed vegetables or contaminated water may contain the toxin produced by the bacteria, which is the largest worldwide cause of gastroenteritis.

The research team used mathematical models to study the variability between pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains of the bacteria to describe their behaviour. This was done via cultivating different pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains of E. coli in three different ways: in the laboratory, milk and meat juice. After this, the growth of micro-organisms was calculated using a variety of parameters, such as the lag time (the time it takes the bacteria to adapt to the medium) and the maximum growth rate. The three mediums used in the experiment attempted to recreate ambient temperature conditions that were above refrigeration levels (15, 20 or 25ºC) or the optimum temperature level for the micro-organism (30, 35 or 40ºC).

The study demonstrated that there is very little variability between pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains, with both displaying similar behaviour under experimental conditions. The principal investigator, Emiliano Quinto, from the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Valladolid said, ‘The values for the lag time and maximum growth rate are comparable and therefore the data from one strain can be used to predict the behaviour of other strains.’

Two statistical estimation strategies were used to do this, both of which were developed in collaboration with a researcher at UC3M. ‘These advanced probabilistic models use a general distribution which encompasses a broad family of standard distributions,’ explained Juan Miguel Marin, a researcher at the Department of Statistics at UC3M. The first of these is parametric, based on a general distribution related to positive measurements, and the second is non-parametric which uses bootstrap resampling methods.

Knowledge Transfer

The main objective of the research, which was recently published in the scientific journal Food Research International, is to predict the behaviour of more dangerous bacteria. In order to do this, it is important to understand the time it takes for bacteria to adapt to a medium and estimate the reproductive speed. This information has practical applications for risk analysis within the food industry. With the data obtained from non-pathogenic strains of E. coli, the behaviour of pathogenic strains can be predicted and their spread within the food chain can be tackled. In other words, this means understanding when to use the technical tools available in the food industry (cooling, sterilisation or pasteurisation) in order to stop bacteria reproduction and in turn limit the production of the toxin associated with intestinal problems. ‘The food industry has a major interest in understanding when to use certain technical treatments. The ideal is to tackle the bacteria before it has time to adapt and therefore deny it the time it needs to reproduce,’ added Emiliano Quinto.

Bibliography:

E.J.Quinto, J.M.Marin, I. Caroa, J. Mateo, M.P.Redondo-del-Rio, B.de-Mateo-Silleras, D.W.Schaffner, “Bootstrap parametric GB2 and bootstrap nonparametric distributions for studying Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli strains growth rate variability”. Food Research International. Volume 120, June 2019, Pages 829-838. 

This Fundación BBVA grant program for scientific research teams seeks to boost basic, translational or applied research in areas of pronounced social interest.  The initiative is based on the support of excellence and innovative talent, with the selection process undertaken by committees of experts in each of the fields.   

An algorithm to monitor psychiatric patients

The UC3M projects receiving these grants are within the framework of two areas.  In the area of Big Data, the project led by the Full Professor from the University’s Department of Signal Theory and Communications, Antonio Artés Rodríguez, focuses on the creation of an algorithm that characterizes the behavior of psychiatric patients. For that purpose, data will be collected on a large scale to determine patients’ mental states and as such help patients under psychiatric care more efficiently.  The researchers will gather the data of patients- who previously have given their consent, guaranteeing their privacy- in collaboration with the Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz. This information will be obtained through mobile phones, which monitor patients’ mobility, activity or sleep. Afterwards, through Deep Learning, these disperse and heterogeneous data will be used by the researchers to transform them into interpretable models that can be of help to these patients.  

The impact of this research is that it will enable the patient’s state to be evaluated automatically.  A psychiatrist will be able to determine their behavior beyond the confines of the office, and as such, be aware of how the patient reacts to a treatment or to therapy to know if it is working or if there is some pattern change, and accordingly make an appropriate decision. The methodology in this study is not only applicable to psychiatry, but rather can be extrapolated to any field in which human behavior is relevant, such as finance, medicine in general, security/safety, advertising or marketing.  

Social networks as a source for behavior analysis

The other UC3M research project awarded a grant from BBVA is within the framework of the area of the Economy and the Digital Society.  The team, led by the UC3M Full Professor of Economics, Ignacio Ortuño Ortín, is made up of engineers and economists and uses social networks as a source for research data.  It is based on the idea that the information that users put on their social networks can be used in the same way as it is in surveys, in order to create a large database on preferences and behaviors.  In this way, the team will analyze the (aggregated and anonymous) information that Facebook provides on the preferences of its 2 billion users to draw up maps and measure the cultural distances between different social groups.   

The aim of this analysis is to determine, for example, the degree of integration of immigrants in a certain society (comparing the interests of the immigrants with those of the local inhabitants.) The researchers have gathered a large quantity of information from social networks and have established that is more complete than traditional surveys, according to which they believe that they would be able to develop stability indexes for every country in the world, including those where survey data is usually scarce.

In the article, recently published in the Journal of Financial Economics, the authors identify the presence of these two effects and determine which effect dominates. “The positive information effect seems to dominate the negative pressure effect”, as highlighted by Anna Toldrà-Simats. “We have found that companies followed by more financial analysts are more likely to acquire other innovative companies, make corporate venture capital (CVC) investments, and reduce internal R&D expenses with little value added, which leads to a more efficient allocation of R&D resources”, adds another author, Bing Guo, also from the Business Administration Department of UC3M.

Professor David Pérez Castrillo, the other co-author from UAB, indicates that “our study suggests that the disciplinary role of financial analysts leads companies to externalise their innovation activities, to make them more visible to the market. A certain level of supervision leads companies to make efficient decisions, also in terms of innovation”. The study concludes that financial analysts lead to a better allocation of companies’ R&D resources, an increase in the number of patents, and an improvement in their quality.

Characteristics of the companies included in the study

The study focuses  on innovative companies,whether they are in high technology sectors, such as aerospace, IT or pharmaceutical industries, or in low technology sectors. The study shows that, in terms of the type of innovation, analyst pressure and changes in R&D spending lead to less radical innovation, while external acquisitions and CVC investments are related to more radical innovation.

In order to conduct this study, the research team analysed information from more than 3000 US listed companies. “We have collected information from nine different databases, such as the companies’ financial data, data on the financial analysts that follow these companies, and data on firms’ innovation strategies, among others”, adds Bing Guo.

Reference:

Bing Guo, David Pérez-Castrillo, Anna Toldrà-Simats. Firms’ innovation strategy under the shadow of analyst coverage. Journal of Financial Economics.  Available online 25 August 2018.

Versión en chino (Chinese version)

"EnergyEcoLab serves as a platform for collaboration between researchers in this field in Madrid as well as elsewhere. It is committed to carrying out thorough quality research, with the aim to shed light on decision-making in the fields of energy and climate policy", explains Natalia Fabra. “Achieving the social and political support necessary for the energy transition relies on our ability to reduce its costs and improve its benefits. Reducing emissions is not just imperative, it is also a unique opportunity to modernise our economies”, asserts the researcher.

This new laboratory has been set up with the support of the European Research Council (ERC), thanks to an ERC Consolidator Grant (GA 772331, Electric Challenges) from Horizon 2020, the EU Research and Innovation Programme, granted to Natalia Fabra, Professor in the Economics Department at UC3M.

For more information visit 

In the MIF category, UC3M Business is one of the 23 best business schools in the world, according to this ranking that aims to measure teaching excellence and student experience. In particular, the UC3M’s Master in Finance has been ranked 19th internationally and 3rd nationally, along with the programmes offered by EADA Business School Barcelona and ESIC Business and Marketing School. Other Spanish centres are also represented in other categories, such as ESADE Business School and IQS School of Management.

In order to carry out the Business School Ranking 2018, 20 performance indicators have been measured according to four categories: the resources provided by the business school; economic, international and gender diversity among students and teachers; employability, and student satisfaction with the education and services received. In order to evaluate the latter aspect, a consultation was carried out with over 23,000 students from three different cohorts, those who completed their studies in 2012, 2013 and 2015.

In 2017 the UC3M became the first Spanish public university to achieve accreditation from the AACSB, an international organisation that recognises the best educational centres in the world for their quality of teaching and research in the areas of business management, accounting, finance and marketing.

For more information:

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.

“The available databases of global trade mainly included the developed world and were inevitably out-dated, because they failed to take into account the research about foreign trade in the last thirty years. In contrast, our database uses all recent research regarding the topic and includes almost all political entities (independent countries and colonies) in the world after 1850”, explains Antonio Tena, professor in the Social Sciences department at UC3M.

This new database systematically collects statistics from developing companies for the first time. These statistics were obtained thanks to the study of new sources or through individualised reconstruction with different methodologies. This enables these countries to be incorporated in the study of the growth of international imports and exports and, therefore, the trade globalisation trends in the past. In addition, incorporating this information in a hyper-connected world map facilitates intuitive and accessible access to the series of data by countries.

Analysis of economic globalisation

The comparison of trade globalisation by individual political entities, regions, trade blocs or development level enables the analyse of the relation between globalisation and economic growth in the long term. “With this new platform you can compare the first globalisation with the current one to analyse the speed of global trade or the amount of production which is moved    as in international trade both by continents and by development level,” states Antonio Tena.

From a historical point of view, specialists speak of a first globalisation before the First World War, a period of disintegration of global trade between the wars and a second globalisation which started after the Second World War (which has continued until now). In fact, some specialists speak about a “hyper-globalisation” which has occurred in the last 20 years, since the 1990s.

“A new feature is that this new database is able to assign a date to the start of the trade globalisation,” explains Antonio Tena. That is, it is able to start to more accurately define when this trade globalisation at the start of the nineteenth century started to accelerate. According to the first results that have observed, it would be before previously thought. “The international trade acceleration would have begun in the 1830s, which is nearly four decades before economic historians traditionally thought,” notes professor Antonio Tena.

This research, which has been developed throughout the last decade, was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Competitiveness and Research (MCI:ECO 2011-25713 and MCI:ECO 2015/00209/001) and the European Union, through a ERC project (GA 230484) awarded to researcher Giovanni Federico. In addition, the Library Service at UC3M, through their work supporting research, has collaborated on the website version and on the data warehouse in the e-cienciaDatos repository, within the Open Data movement.

More information: /tradehist_db

Federico-Tena World Trade Historical Database (noticia en chino/chinese version)

The teams have two days to analyse and resolve a case study which they then present in a research article format. The 10 teams that progress to the final then have to work on a second case study for one more day and present their findings and the econometric methods they used. The team entered by UC3M has reached the final of every edition except one since 2007, winning the competition on three occasions. “Part of this success is due to the Econometrics education the postgraduate students receive from the UC3M Economics department”, states Miguel A. Delgado, professor at UC3M and the tutor of this year’s team.

The different methods are evaluated by a jury of renowned independent specialists. The theme this year focused on the effects of unemployment, both individual and aggregate, on subjective measures of wellbeing and its channels of communication. They were provided with a cross-section of data for 1984, 1990, 1999 and 2008 from the European Values Studies with 165,000 people and more than 1,300 questions in 20 European countries.

The following universities competed this year: Aarhus University, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Harvard University, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, KU Leuven, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Lund University, McGill University, Monash University, National Research University Higher School of Economics – Perm, New Economic School, Oxford University, Stellenbosch University, Toulouse School of Economics, Universidad del Rosario, Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteit van Tilburg, 天美传媒, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, University of Copenhagen, University of Florence, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Orleans, University of St. Gallen, University of Toronto, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Warsaw School of Economics.

Further information:

One of the conclusions reached by these researchers is that there are no gender differences in monitoring abilities among corporate directors, but rather it is the companies hiring them in a different way. “There is discrimination accessing boards of directors, that is, there are companies that systematically prefer to hire men instead of women,” asserted another of the study’s authors, Beatriz García Osma, full professor in the UC3M Department of Business Administration.

Another conclusion of the research is that “companies that discriminate against women are also those that have poorer accounting information”, indicated another of the study’s authors, Araceli Mora, from the Universidad de Valencia. “The work we have carried out is based on a sample of United Kingdom firms, but these conclusions can be extrapolated to the Spanish case, given that the profile of directors in large firms is similar across countries”, noted another of the researchers, Mariano Scapin, from the University of Bristol.

These results could be used to propose new measures against discrimination at the workplace.  The researchers propose that society itself as well as firms should critically reflect upon why there are so few women on boards of directors, as men and women holding these positions do not differ in their capacity and in the performance of  their workplace roles.

Bibliographic references: Juan Manuel García Lara, Beatriz García Osma, Araceli Mora, Mariano Scapin. The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality. Journal of Corporate Finance, 2017, vol. 45, issue C, 651-668.

Directivas - Traducción al chino (Chinese translation)

This European call, with a success rate of 13%, distributes 630 million euros to 329 research projects throughout the entire continent (chosen out of 2,528 proposals). UC3M is one of five Spanish universities that has obtained funding in the call, thanks, to the project presented by Natalia Fabra, Full Professor in the UC3M Department of Economics.

Electricity challenges and climate change

Current Tools and Policy Challenges in Electricity Markets is the title of the research project headed by Fabra that has obtained ERC funding for the next five years.  Its aim: to analyze the design of regulatory instruments which minimize the costs of energy transition towards low-carbon economies.  This research work will combine theoretic modelling, simulations and Big Data analysis to contribute to the area of Economy of Energy and the Environment, a well as to provide information regarding decision making in regulating policy in this area.

“Achieving the necessary political and social support for energy transition depends on our capacity to reduce costs and boost its benefits. Lowering emissions is not only a must, it is also a unique opportunity to modernize our economy,” the researcher pointed out. For that purpose and together with its team, it will analyze issues such as the impact of renewable energies in the electricity market, how contracts and bids should be designed for new investments in renewables, and what role the consumer can play through management of his or her electricity demand.  

UC3M has now 7 ERC projects (4 Starting Grants and 3 Consolidator Grants) with a global funding of approximately 10 million euros, provided by the European Research Council through its H2020 Excellent Science programme.  Overall, UC3M’s participation in H2020 has been worthy of note: it holds 15th position in Spain for return obtained with this program and 7th position among Spanish universities, according to the latest report presented by the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial-CDTI (Center for the Development of Industrial Technology) of the Spanish Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness.  

Further information:

Consolidator Grants ERC 2017:

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.

The projects are categorized into four subject areas that articulate the exhibition’s space: The Origin of Humanity, Scientific and Technological Advances, Challenges of the Future and Social Challenges. Visitors receive informational cards about each project and the display incorporates texts in “easy reading” format so that they are accessible to visitors with cognitive or intellectual disabilities.

The UC3M project, called “Statistics, For What?” consists of a video and a collection of books about applications of statistics in several areas of knowledge. “With these elements, we want to highlight the cross-disciplinary nature of statistics and its application to generate new knowledge in different scientific, technological and social fields in which we work,” said one of the project’s authors, who is from the UC3M Department of Statistics. “Among many other things, and as the video reflects, statistics serves to fight poverty, study climate change, model levels of pollution, program a robot, analyze social problems and recognize people and their corporal expressions. The project seeks, in a very visual way and with very familiar language, to reflect the ability statistics has to respond to many questions and challenges that arise naturally in the environment.”

The other projects selected are from the universities of Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Oviedo, Politécnica de Madrid, Vic and Vigo. The display can be visited until the end of June 2018 at the MUNCYT in A Coruña.

The results of the study, published in the journal Research Policy, show that both basic and clinical research have a positive effect on hospital efficiency. “Hospitals that can produce more knowledge in terms of scientific publications are also going to be better hospitals, in both diagnosis and treatment and surgery. As such, they contribute to reducing the patient's average stay in hospitals,” said one the study’s authors, Josep A. Tribo, full professor in the UC3M Department of Business Administration.

“Taking into account that approximately 9% of the population is hospitalized over the course of the year, each day of a hospital stay entails an annual cost of some 660 euros per patient in Spain,” explained another of the researchers, Álvaro Escribano, full professor in the UC3M Department of Economics. “Therefore, adopting measures that reduce the duration of hospital stays will greatly reduce health costs.” Tribo added, “If you reduce or penalize doctors’ research activity, they will be less prepared, which will ultimately lead to an increase in health care costs.” In other words, hurting research can have a great impact on global health care costs.

The study also analyzes the impact of R&D on the sustainability of the National Health System (initialed SNS in Spanish) through the cost reduction entailed by the reduction in the length of hospital stays. “If scientific production increased significantly, health costs would be reduced by around 1%,” stated another of the researchers, Antonio García-Romero, professor at the IE Business School.

In the study, they also point out the most important factors that affect the efficiency of hospitals, such as their characteristics, human resources, diagnostic activity, investment and capacity to absorb knowledge. Their recommendation, however, is that “it is necessary to promote research, and in particular, basic research, because this would have very clear effects in the medium to long term on efficiency and a reduction in health care costs.”In addition, there are other indirect benefits that are even more important. For example, if patients recover sooner, they will also return to work sooner, which in turn will increase labor production.

Furthermore, research carried out in hospitals affects other aspects such as reduction in mortality and patient safety patient. The methodology used in this article could be employed to analyze these effects.

Further information:

The impact of health research on length of stay in Spanish public hospitals. Antonio García-Romero, Research Policy, Volume 46, Issue 3, April 2017, Pages 591–604.

中國的翻譯 (Chinese translation)

The lowest incidence of domestic violence occurs in families in which both members of the couple work. One percent of these families experience domestic abuse. “It is more likely that these more egalitarian couples share values that question the more traditional roles of gender, particularly those associated with the dominant role of the male and his attitude regarding violence,” said César Alonso, one of the study’s authors, from the UC3M Department of Economics. “When the male doesn’t work, the risk of violence can increase to the extent that his traditional role of family provider is questioned,” said another of the authors, Raquel Carrasco, also from the UC3M Department of Economics.

There are other demographic characteristics which also affect abuse: having a higher level of education tends to reduce the risk of domestic abuse; and the older the woman is, the more likely she is to suffer gender-based violence. According to the researchers, inasmuch as there are different risks of abuse for each type of couple, the policies designed to alleviate this problem would have to be different.

These results could be used to propose policies against this social scourge: in the short term, prevention policies for the most vulnerable groups (in particular, couples with the highest risk of social exclusion), including the legal compliance of preventive measures to curb violence and the extension of shelter and aid procedures  for victims and their children; and in the long term, educational policies that promote effective gender equality by transmitting the values of gender equality from infancy, and policies that guarantee the autonomy and empowerment of women through employment.

Bibliographical reference:

Employment and the risk of domestic violence: does the breadwinner’s gender matter? César Alonso-Borrego and Raquel Carrasco. Applied Economics Vol. 0 , Iss. 0,0. Pages 1-18 | Published online: 09 Mar 2017

The new investments enable these companies to stay active and keep creating employment.  According to Professor García Lara, “Our research shows that reporting conservative accounting information (versus excessively optimistic information) has positive economic effects for companies and for the economy as a whole.”  García Lara published the study in the Journal of Accounting and Economics along with Beatriz García Osma, also a professor at UC3M, and Fernando Peñalva, a professor at Universidad de Navarra.

For a large firm, determining its profit is a difficult task, as profits are calculated based on a number of complex estimates. If the possible profit ranged, for example, between 5 and 10, 5 would be prudent or conservative, 7 neutral and 10 aggressive or risky. The researchers note that what this study reveals is that the economy does not reward an intermediate or neutral position, but does so with one that is more conservative and closer to 5.

“The optimal policy to obtain financing and for the economy to run better is to provide conservative information. This finding goes against the latest regulations adopted in the United States as well as in Europe, which assume that neutral information is ideal,” Professor Garcia Lara pointed out.

The study was carried out with US data provided by the financial service company Standard & Poor’s, comparing conservative and aggressive strategies of US companies over the past 40 years, and relating them to their capacity to obtain financing and to invest.

Firms’ access to financing sources is crucial to undertake new investment projects, and accordingly, reactivate the economic system and create employment. The information in the financial statements plays an important role in achieving these objectives, as it must generate enough confidence from capital providers so that financing flows toward the business sector.

Further information:

García Lara, J.M.; García Osma, B.; Penalva, F. (2016): “Accounting Conservatism and Firm Investment Efficiency”, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 61(1): 221-238.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2015.07.003

Noticia en chino (chinese version) - financiación

Cuando se analiza un dato económico –en este caso mensual: el IPC del 15 de octubre - es oportuno compararlo con la expectativa o predicción disponible sobre él y analizar qué componentes de ese dato agregado se han comportado según lo previsto y cuáles muestran desviaciones significativas respecto a sus correspondientes predicciones, indican los expertos de l天美传媒.

En el dato de inflación de octubre, los precios de carburantes, combustibles y electricidad han subido de manera sorpresiva. De estos tres factores energéticos, la electricidad incrementa su precio en términos anuales por primera vez este año, conforme a lo que se preveía en el BIAM, aunque de forma más pronunciada. La sorpresa al alza en los precios de los combustibles y carburantes está ligada a la evolución en el último mes de los precios del Brent en euros.

Sobre los precios de la globalidad de los productos energéticos, el BIAM predecía que la racha de tasas de variación anual negativas desde 2014 se revertiría, dando lugar a tasas positivas en enero de 2017. Los datos de octubre suponen que ese cambio en los precios energéticos se ha adelantado tres meses. El resto de los bienes o servicios se han comportado de acuerdo con las expectativas.

Para el año 2016 se espera una inflación anual media negativa del 0.3% (±0.07), y una inflación subyacente –excluidos precios de alimentos no elaborados y productos energéticos- positiva del 0.8% (±0.04). La tasa anual de diciembre de 2016, que recoge toda la inflación acumulada durante ese periodo, se prevé que será positiva (alrededor del 0.8%; ± 0.4). En 2017 el BIAM prevé que la inflación media anual se sitúe en torno al 1.3% (±1.38).

Castilla y León, por su parte, sumaría un crecimiento por encima de la media nacional en algunos indicadores relacionados con la actividad turística. La Comunidad Valenciana, además del citado buen comportamiento industrial, presenta un desempeño superior a la media en el sector servicios y otros aspectos de la demanda interna. Respecto al País Vasco, basa sus buenas perspectivas, además de en la industria, en los datos especialmente positivos en indicadores relacionados con el sector servicios.

La próxima actualización de estas previsiones se realizará en el mes de diciembre, incluyendo los datos de Contabilidad Nacional Trimestral española del tercer trimestre de 2016, junto con los indicadores autonómicos disponibles hasta la fecha. 

Para un detalle más específico por CCAA puede contactarse al siguiente correo electrónico: laborat@est-econ.uc3m.es

Bilingual education programs, in which a substantial part of the teaching is done in a language different from the mother tongue and from the language of the students’ surroundings, have been fully established for years in countries such as India, Spain and the United States. In order to analyze the effects of these programs, these researchers evaluated the program that the Autonomous Community of Madrid introduced in a group of public primary schools in 2004.

“We have found a negative effect on the level of competence and knowledge displayed by the students who have followed this bilingual program in those subjects that were taught in English,” states one of the researchers, Jesús Carro, of the UC3M Department of Mathematics. The study, which was recently published in the journal Economic Inquiry, uses data from the test of essential knowledge administered by the Community of Madrid when students complete their elementary education.

“These students and teachers are making an additional effort because they have to teach and learn the subjects in a language that is not theirs. They have to spend more time and make a greater effort to learn English, which can affect their learning of the specific material taught in subjects such as Science, History and Geography,” the researchers explain. Another consideration is that these students take the official exams in Spanish, given that the same test is administered to all the students in the Community of Madrid. “The results are still relevant, because as they progress through the Spanish educational system these students are going to be evaluated in Spanish, and they need to not only have certain knowledge, but to be able to express that knowledge in this language.”

The Parents’ Educational Level

This negative result is more pronounced in those students whose parents have a lower level of education, while the difference is hardly noticeable in students whose parents have a higher level of studies. “We can establish a number of hypotheses with the regard to the reasons behind this, such as that they receive more help at home, they have greater resources, they are more exposed to situations where other languages are used or that are linguistically richer,” comments Jesús Carro. “Because the negative effect is so localized in a specific group of students, it would be easy to establish a tutoring program to solve the problem,” he suggests. Moreover, he points out that none of the students in the bilingual program obtain worse results in the area of reading comprehension in Spanish.

This evaluation only refers to the bilingual program that has been carried out in public schools. “Over the years, a program that is similar to those employed in private charter schools has been implemented, but the results of this study cannot be extrapolated to those schools because it is not clear that they have the same level of teachers prepared to implement the program,” the professor states.

There are several important questions to examine, according to the researchers. The first is to find out what has happened to these students in the following stages of their education. “It’s possible that the negative effect that we have detected will disappear at that point, because in secondary school, the students have a higher level of English,” says Carro, who also proposes another topic to be analyzed:  find out what other factors can influence the program’s results, such a the importance of the teachers’ level of English. “This is relevant both in terms of finding out if that could improve the test results, as well as in terms of getting a better idea of what might be happening with the program in the years following the ones we are analyzing. Over the years, the program has expanded a great deal, and very quickly, in both public schools and charter schools, but it is not so clear that the same number of teachers who are prepared to implement the program are available now as there were during the first years the program was established in public schools. Nobody has studied this, as far as I know,” the professor concludes.  

Bibliography:

Carro, JM. Cabrales, A. Anghel, B. (2016). Evaluating a bilingual education program in Spain: the impact beyond foreign language learning. Economic Inquiry. Vol. 54, No. 2, April 2016, 1202–1223. DOI:10.1111/ecin.12305.

Noticia en chino (Chinese news)

Specifically, those students “who participated in sports activities earned grade point averages that were 9.3% higher than those of students who completed their undergraduate degrees but did not take part in any sports activities,” points out another of the study’s authors, Fernando Muñoz Bullón, Associate Professor de Organización de Empresas (Business Organization) at UC3M.

“This study shows the value of sports as an official activity at UC3M and in the university environment in general,” highlights the third author of the study, Antonio Vos Saz, who had been connected to the former Espacio Estudiantes service at UC3M and who is currently the financial director of the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid (Villa de Madrid Country Club).

The data that were used for this study come from UC3M databases on academic performance and students’ sports activities. Different variables were also taken into consideration when the relationship between sports activities and academic performance was being evaluated; these include: gender, time taken to complete the degree, age when beginning the degree, the area of the degree (Engineering, Social Sciences and Law, or Humanities), whether or not the student received a grant or came from a large family (with 3 or more children).

The researchers noted certain differences in the relationship between academic performance and the type of sports activity practiced, a subject they propose examining in subsequent studies. “Perhaps the impact on academic performance is not the same if the sport practiced is individual rather than a team sport,” notes Fernando Muñoz Bullón, who suggests the challenge of carrying out a similar study with data from other universities in order to analyze whether the results obtained at UC3M can be extrapolated to the Spanish university environment in general. 

The authors conclude that sports activities, beyond the indisputable health benefits for those who take part in them, also enable the practitioners to achieve the results that educational institutions are seeking.

Japan is the forerunner of many economic, social and technological dynamics that decades later became established in Europe. “In the research, we look at what is happening at work and in companies in Japan, where they have been pioneers in the organization of work (for example, “just in time,” light production, total quality and the “Z” theory). And more specifically, we have sought to better understand Japanese trends in the triangle consisting of dedication to work, innovation and health,” said Zapata.

To achieve this, they carried out a qualitative study in Japan, interviewing employees (above all qualified young people) of Japanese multinationals that are also present in Spain, experts in human resources, university scientists and authorities at the new government research center in Japan to address the disorders associated with overwork. In an effort to design better policies, the research center examines claims filed in the last five years (over 2,000 a year) because of health problems related to overwork.

The Japanese were the first to innovate on the basis of maximum dedication to work, with very long workdays and minimal vacations. After several decades, it seems this has had a large impact on health, the birth rate and families, calling into question its sustainability. In fact, the Japanese government, within what is known as “Abenomics,” is taking a very active role in trying to change Japanese business culture, regulating working hours, mandating increased vacation days or setting stop-work times, among other measures. “Meanwhile, in Europe, although we have a different legal and labor framework, we are nonetheless following the Japanese pattern of working more intensely,” said Zapata.

The Japanese case reveals other trends that are also found in Europe, such as companies which are changing their corporate culture so that the most innovative talent that young people offer is not lost to brain-drain. “Japanese youth are changing their priorities and are looking for jobs that are less harsh, more sustainable and that involve a social contribution, even if this entails lower pay,” said Zapata. Those interviewed note that they don’t want to go through what their parents went through and stay away from jobs they consider toxic. Also, this is tied to the idea that the health of young people today seems especially vulnerable to stressful jobs, which pose more potential harm to mental health.The round table will be moderated by Yuko Morimoto, the Director of Asian Studies at UC3M Carlos III International School. Apart from Prof. Pérez Zapata, contributing to the discussion will be Shoji Yoshida, Director of the Japan Foundation in Madrid, Tomás Zumárraga, Director of the Japanese business association Shacho Kai, and José Ramón Gutiérrez, from Esden Business School. These speakers will also present the results of another study on Japanese companies in Spain. The event is backed by the company Dubitare, the Shacho Kai Japanese Enterprise Association and the Japan Foundation in Madrid.

This event is part of the UC3M Science Week, which this year has thirty free science-related activities. Running from November 2nd to November 15th, Science Week offers guided visits, workshops, open-door conferences, talks, contests, etc. Further information: www.uc3m.es/semanaciencia2015

Further information: www.uc3m.es/semanaciencia2015

o The Future of Work and the Healthy Workplace: What Can We Learn from the Japanese?
o Tuesday, November 10th, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
o Campus de Madrid-Puerta de Toledo de l天美传媒. How to get there
o To reserve seats send an e-mail to info@dubitare.com