[27/09/2007]
The Open University of Catalonia has created the International Graduate Institute (IIP), with the aim of being a reference point as a quality distance-learning ongoing education centre, through a range of open postgraduate programmes and bespoke company training. Its courses will be multilingual and have a clear international emphasis, both in respect to the incorporation of students and professors from around the world, as well as in the academic alliances with other universities.
The UOC creates the International Graduate Institute with more than 225 programmes
The IIP has been formed to promote the citizens´ ongoing education in response to the university´s social mission, by offering a wide range of masters and postgraduate programmes, which are open and tailor-made for companies, and are of academic rigorousness and quality. It will be offering programmes in new fields that the university has not developed until now, such as health and business "with special emphasis on electronic commerce, innovation and entrepreneurship". The programmes offered will be extended in relation to the cooperation and management of the city. The setting up of this institute will not only mean an increase in quality and fields of study, but also in the offer of official programmes. In this way, the UOC, which is running three official masters adapted to the European Higher Education Area during this academic year, will offer six more from 2008. The new courses will cover the areas of digital literature, marketing, workplace risk prevention, cultural management, political analysis and institutions and secondary school teacher training. One of the milestones reached with this new institute is the internationalisation of their virtual postgraduate training, on the one hand establishing new collaborations with international universities, and on the other increasing the presence of overseas students and professors. Following this line, it will be providing bespoke courses for professionals of companies from countries such as Chile and Mexico. Its internationalisation will also be reflected in the increase in the number of languages in which the courses will be able to be taken. The programmes have used Catalan, Spanish and English up until now, however, over the next few months, they will also be available in French and Portuguese. Furthermore, in the future it is planned to offer the courses in Arabic and other languages. The creation of multilingual classrooms will allow the student to undertake a course in any language.
The history of postgraduate studies at the UOC
The Open University of Catalonia started to operate in the official and proprietary
postgraduate virtual training area 10 years ago. During this time, 225 programmes and 900 bespoke
company training courses have been developed, which have been participated in by nearly 30,000
students from 29 countries. The UOC currently has 1,100 students enrolled
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