“It is up to us to prepare as best as we can for what comes next. And the more we strive to improve the training of our young people and boost the competitiveness of our companies, the more prepared we are for the future. ”

The challenge faced by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mondragon, Vicente Atxa, highlighted the challenge that took place on September 13 at the campus of the Business School of Oñati in the official opening ceremony of the 2019-2020 academic year. Atxa will have a second term as head of Mondragon University.

Together with the Vice-Chancellor, the event was officially opened by President Iñigo Urkullu, who presented the academic report for the previous academic year, the Secretary General of Mondragon University, Idoia Peñacoba, and Dr. Eduardo Castellanos, who gave the opening lecture. Also present were the Minister of Education Cristina Uriarte and the President of the University of Mondragon, along with other authorities in the fields of politics and academia.

Three challenges

The rector emphasized the three main challenges and milestones facing the university this academic year. They are in line with the Basque University System Plan and they want to have a positive impact on the construction of the Basque Country that will become a model for sustainable human development. This is the initial goal of the MONDRAGON cooperative movement.

1. Remain a leader in innovation in university education to significantly improve student learning and college experience. It is in the DNA of the university, in its own educational model.
2. Continue to promote a lifelong training model through increasingly specialized and complex programs to ensure employability and business competitiveness in the face of the skills required for future work.
3. Conduct applied research, in collaboration with companies, to help better compete with the Basque business network

According to the Rector of Mondragon University, "these three are our main challenges: improving the learning of young people, continuing education and the creation of high-level knowledge and transferring their business quickly and efficiently"

Innovation, the key to compete

Convinced that the future of the Basque Country in higher education and research, aligned with the country's strategy, Mondragon University has set itself the goal of being a key player in the construction of our country. According to the Rector, “if a country is to be competitive, it needs young people and trained professionals. And to do that, we need to maximize learning at all levels of education, and of course, in college. ”
In his view, as knowledge, technology, industry and markets have become so complex this century, “we cannot train young people in the same way as in the previous century, which would be to betray ourselves, to delay the clock of history and progress. And others that we will compete with as a country will not stop their watches; they will change and improve young people's learning, they are doing. So let us go on; let's upgrade to higher education, university training, ”the rector said.

With regard to life-long training, the Rector of Mondragon University believes that the university must respond to the demographic and labor situation of companies and organizations, as well as to the adaptation that professionals need to adapt to this situation.

Given the demographic situation facing society, he stated that it will be difficult to replace certain professionals. In his words, “it will cost a lot of companies to replace some professionals. And we cannot accept that people in the workforce are lagging behind in the skills required by new jobs. ” He believes that ongoing training programs with companies and administrations will need to be developed to ensure and improve the employability of people already in the labor market. “At Mondragon University we train more than 7,000 professionals a year; but for these professionals we will continue to design more official programs and own titles, with the aim of creating more and more specialized and complex programs, and new technologies will have to be used to develop them ”.

The Rector gave a special piece of research: “If we want to help our companies become more globally competitive, we must also be more global. We need to become more international in both training and research. We need to increase and maximize the impact of our research and innovation on the business network, ”he said.