UIC Barcelona participated in the Interuniversity Research Conference on Cooperation held on 13 March as part of the project “UniACT! - Universities in action for a fairer world”, of which UIC Barcelona is a member. The aim of this conference is to give visibility to research for development and to establish the foundations for the joint design of instruments and incentives to promote it. Dr Sílvia Albareda, director of the Office of Cooperation and Sustainable Development and lecturer at the Faculty of Education Sciences, was one of the coordinators of this event: “The University participated in this meeting with four posters to highlight the valuable work developed in this field,” she explained.

The Faculty of Dentistry presented the poster “Smiles without borders and their global commitment” with two Social Dentistry programmes aimed at vulnerable communities in Melilla and Madagascar. These projects, framed within the axes of the Catalan Master Plan for Development Cooperation 2023-2026, promote equitable access to quality health services and are based on the principles of innovation, respect for human rights, and gender perspective. Dr Lluís Giner, Dr Ignacio Macpherson, Dr Judith Roger, and Olga Miralles, along with other Dentistry students, participated in this project. 

The poster by Dr Íñigo Ugalde, lecturer at UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, showcased the collaboration project in Sub-Saharan Africa that has been underway since 2023 in the Cooperation course at the University, which collaborates in Sub-Saharan Africa with the NGO ADESCI in the construction of work camps in Uganda. Architecture students study the location, context, functional programme, and budget of the projects carried out by the NGO to propose designs that improve the prototypes inherited from the colonial era with resources learned from the local communities.

Dr Maite Fuertes, lecturer at the Faculty of Education Sciences, presented the poster “Gender Justice and Girls' Education in Guatemala” to share her work as a collaborator with the FUNDAP team for the development of service-learning practices (ApS) in the Quetzaltenango region. Fuertes highlights the lack of training in families, the high rate of female school dropout, and the scarcity of resources for girls' education. Through the curricular practices she coordinates at the Faculty of Education Sciences, the lecturer collaborates in the training projects of “Multiplying Mothers” to become trainers in early stimulation, and in the “Scholarships for Girls” programme, offering curricular and extracurricular training. 

Finally, Dr Carmen Mendoza's poster introduces the Master's Degree in International Cooperation and Sustainable Emergency Architecture at the University, designed to equip architects and urban planners with the necessary experience to develop and rebuild communities affected by rapid urbanisation, poverty, conflicts, and disasters. 

UIC Barcelona participates in these initiatives in the field of cooperation due to its strong commitment to research and knowledge transfer aimed at human development.