Contribution to round table on employability, mobility and internationalisation at the 26th Spanish Conferences of Dean in Arts and Humanities

1. XXVI Conferencia de decanatos
de artes y humanidades
Aurelio Ruiz, Dept. Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones, UPF
@ruiz_aurelio
@dtic_upf

2. https://www.upf.edu/etic https://www.upf.edu/mdm-dtic

3. Outline
● Context
● Technology as an opportunity for social sciences and
humanities
● Addressing fragmentation
● Addressing personalization
● Taking profit of the whole community

4. Context

5. Key values

6. Key facts
People
Tenured Faculty: 44 (*)
• > 250 full-time research staff, > 40% international
(*) previous positions: Stanford, Cambridge, IBM Watson Research, Bell Labs, New
York University, ETH Zürich, Univ. College London, Minnesota University, etc
Engineers, mathematicians, physics, biologists, linguists, philosophers... + software
developers + managers and administration + programs for artists in residence
Research
● 44 FP7 / H2020 active projects (2016) including 16 prestigious ERC Grants, the
Human Brain Project and projects from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Google Research, Cisco Research, etc. Absolute leader in EU funds in Spain, > 5%
of all the funds obtained by Spanish Universities
● Consolidated scientific productivity around 200 articles / year, > 75% Q1
international journals, > 60% D1 international journals
● 50% scientific papers and articles with at least one international collaborator

7. Education
Undergraduate Programs (900 students)
•Computer Sciences
•Telematics Engineering
•Audiovisual Systems Engineering
•Biomedical Engineering (joint with Health Science Dept. at UPF)
•Mathematical Engineering in Data Science
Research Master’s Degrees (200 students, > 50% international)
•Master in Sound and Music Computing
•Master in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media
•Master in Intelligent Interactive Systems
•Master in Computer Vision
•Master in Wireless Communications
•Master in Computational Biomedical engineering
•Master in Brain and Cognition
PhD Program in Information and Communication Technologies (200 students, >
60% international)

8. Technology, an opportunity for humanities and social
sciences

9. Beyond using the tools. Current research challenges. Current employment
opportunities and future professions → Employability AND mobility
Challenges emerging from the ubiquity of technology in our lives and its impact
which ARE NOT of technological nature
● Human – human, human - machine and machine-machine interaction: new ethical
issues, new policies. A topic for artists, sociologists, linguists, philosophers,
lawyers
● Multiculturality: CompMusic ( http://compmusic.upf.edu/ ) - musicologists
● Multilingualism: such as minority languages online
● Art creation: new tools and interfaces, new distribution methods. All fields.
● Participation processes: online manipulation
● Algorithmic bias. Algorithmic transparency: responsibility, policies, laws
● Data protection. Privacy.
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/communities/community/humaint
Technology as an opportunity to humanities and
social sciences

10. Fragmentation
The (increasingly complex) daily life of a faculty member:
● Teaching, including its management. Non-regular teaching (such as summer
schools) : Academic Management Service + International Services + Professional
Careers + Alumni
● Research, including its funding, justification and communication. Participation in
peer review, scientific boards, ethical issues: Research Services + Ethical
Committees + Library + Research Infrastructures + Human Resources
● Transfer, including IPR, licensing, private funding, entrepreneurship, etc: Innovation
Unit
● Communication (press, general public, marketing, etc): Communication Unit
● Social impact (schools, NGOs, public policy, equality, inclusion …): Social
Responsibility, Equality unit, etc
Inefficient
Services individually targeting overlapping goals
Under-exploited network of relations at individual level → Huge under-exploited
aggregated network → Missed opportunities for students
New mixed roles (PDI increasingly taking PAS roles?)

11. Personalization
Difficult. Barriers: fragmentation, all or none approaches
Personal focus on:
● Empowering students to complement top-down actions
● Bringing existing services to teaching activities
● Management and Innovation (Biomedical Engineering)
○ Standard management tools → Application to own career development
● PhD Seminar (ICT program). Adapt complexity to own interests.
○ Intellectual property, data management, ethical issues, communication of
science, ethical issues, career development, emerging topics in ICT →
reflection on their research proposals (https://www.upf.edu/web/etic/i-research_seminars )
● MENTOS Mentoring program: female engineering students and external
professionals (https://www.upf.edu/web/mentos )
● HackLab: student projects that seek other students to push them, and an eay way t
use university resources (https://www.upf.edu/web/hacklab )
Information about student’s motivations and interests → match with existing network

12. Communities
● Move from group of individuals to a wide community
Faculty
Research staff
Current students
External lecturers
Alumni (BSc, MSc, PhD)….
Relevant also for actions like lobby
http://somma.es/