Ruth Mayoral: ‘We are designing other forms of collaboration between education centres and CCIs’

The project arose from the initiative of the Vice-Ministry of Universities and Research with the dual aim of bridging the gap between the University and Business in this field and to promote collaboration between training centres that will enable Higher and University Education in the Basque Country to continue to evolve. Following the design of the project by Euskampus Fundazioa, and celebrating the alliance of the Basque Government's Departments of Education and, Culture and Language Policy, KSIgune was finally born in 2021: the Basque Higher Education and Research cluster for the Cultural and Creative Industries.

KSIgune brings together 27 Faculties and Schools which, in turn, have more than 280 training programmes and more than 70 research groups, institutes and chairs related to these industries (ICC). In these three years, it has already supported more than 40 collaborative projects between universities and companies developed by students and research staff. Its uniqueness, its management formula and the milestones it has achieved in its short time of existence have been accompanied by its progressive positioning in the international context. These are some of the reasons why it has been recognised by the European Commission as an example of Regional Skills Partnership, the first in Cultural and Creative Industries.

While maintaining the focus on the programmes already active in KSIgune, other forms of collaboration between our centres and the CCIs are beginning to be designed, especially in relation to the creation of new training that responds to the evolution of some of these industries, as well as to the evolution of the life itineraries themselves and the search for other forms of Higher and University Education (dual, lifelong, micro-credentials, international, etc.). It is also beginning to transcend the perimeter of the Basque Country to extend the model to our Euroregional territory, with Navarre and New Aquitaine, through the Euroregional Green Audiovisual Hub.

The role that KSIgune is about to play is not an easy one. From Performing Arts or Heritage, to Architecture or Design, the CCIs are made up of very different sectors in terms of subject matter, level of development and even DNA. The reflection of the cultural sectors, the Arts and the creative sectors in the Academy retains this complexity, but the Academy is inevitably and fortunately part of the answer. It is by including Education that we will truly be able to respond to relevant challenges in our Society. At the same level of the challenge is the opportunity.
 

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Tribune by Ruth Mayoral, Head of Higher Education Programmes at Euskampus Fundazioa
Estrategia Empresarial Magazine
16/12/2024

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Image: John Jennings

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