D-Recerca gets explanations from DIUE

Here is linked the mailing list on our theme at D-Recerca, the Association of Graduate Students and Research Fellows of Catalonia. Readers are encouraged to check it and participate in its activities; it must not be forgotten that D-Recerca is the association representing most predoctoral researchers in Catalonia.

This post's highlight goes to a meeting between a representation of D-Recerca and the Generalitat de Catalunya Department for Innovation, Universities and Enterprise (DIUE) Director General, Josep Rives.

About the rise of the thesis supervision fees, the meeting report states:

The reason given to explain this rise of 300% in doctorate fees is the adaptation to the European Higher Education Area. Since this year is the first in which the Bologna Accord is implemented in studies from the first course, they have wanted to update the third degree as well. They state that this price of 400€ is to cover expenses of the supervision service and bibliographical fonts access. We complained about the supervision service being symbolic in all cases and hence it is not justifiable to charge so much money giving nothing in exchange*. We were told then that we would have to address the vice-chancellery for research at each university and demand there the services corresponding to the degree, like a better offer of teachings and advisory services.
But yes, students registered for PhD. programmes previous to the new plan will be charged just the previous fees.

Readers are encouraged to question if they use these services as predoctoral researchers, if they want to have to claim them and if they are willing to pay more today than they did yesterday for something that they have to make a claim to get improved, but mainly for something that they probably didn't ask to improve, least to become so expensive.

About what is paid in each programme, it seems that students in the DEA pathway are in a better position, although there's some contradictory information running around about this point. Any readers registered for a DEA programme and being charged the 400€ fee are welcome to report that in the comments section.

* A comment in the Spanish version reveals yet another contradiction in the explanation of the fee as covering bibliographical access and the actual reduction of bibliographical access for Spanish universities by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology in purchasing a cheaper license for ISI Web of Knowledge this year.