The UAB and Barcelona Activa to strengthen professional opportunities for graduates
On 19 May, the UAB and Barcelona Activa signed an agreement in which each institution would share job offers and work placements with the other, and tailor-made options would be created to improve skills and training would be offered to acquire new entrepreneurial knowledge.
The agreement aims to connect the expertise of Barcelona's economic development agency with the professional needs of university graduates.
The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and Barcelona Activa have reached a collaboration agreement in which recent graduates and alumni members will benefit from greater labour market options. On Thursday 19 May, UAB Rector Javier Lafuente and General Director of Barcelona Activa Félix Ortega signed a collaboration agreement at the UAB. They were accompanied by Analbel Galán-Mañas, Vice Rector for Students and Employability at the UAB; Raquel Gil, Commissioner for Employment Opportunities and Policies to combat Precarious Labour; Paco Ramos, Executive Director of Employment Generation Strategies; and África Cardona, Deputy Director of Employment Generation Strategies. After the agreement was signed, the group toured the campus and visited the Employment Office and the UAB Parc de Recerca.
The UAB and Barcelona Activa will work jointly with a professional counselling service and share job offers and work placements, thereby permitting the UAB community to have access to selection processes conducted by the municipal agency.
The two entities will also work together to offer academic activities for groups and help in job searches, as well as when graduates aim to make a change in their professional career, thanks to a team of experts from different job employment and guidance fields, and provide tailor-made actions when the university detects specific needs. The development of "soft skills" will also be an important part of the agreement.
Moreover, Barcelona Activa will also offer services and activities related to the world of entrepreneurs, at its own business incubators, and support for cooperatives, through leading spaces such as innoBA, all with the aim of offerng new professional ideas and perspectives to university graduates.
‘Reskilling’ and ‘Upskilling’
The UAB will aid in detecting professional technical skills that can help to improve the employability of its graduates thanks to short-term training activities which can allow members to "reskill" and "upskill" their knowledge. As an example, Barcelona Activa and the UAB, through the UAB Language Services and the Education Consortium, offered a course entitled Reskilling Idiomes, in which 1,000 people acquired new or improved their language skills, particularly in English.
The UAB also shares other areas of interest with Barcelona Activa, such as learning tools and methodologies, specific job offer and demand profiles, and support for collectives with difficulties in finding employment.
In 2021, Barcelona Activa has helped over 16,000 people in the business and entrepreneurial sector, which corresponds to 8,000 businesses and 1,500 entrepereneurial projects. A total of 60% of these individuals were university graduates.