We are proud to have research partners all over the world, with collaboration agreements and work commitments based on trust and betting on the future, becoming stronger year after year.
Currently, international collaboration between universities is a common practice around the world. All universities have units dedicated to establishing, consolidating, and managing links with other related schools. These types of links with other universities increase the quality of studies, research potential, and student and faculty perspectives.
For our students it represents opening up doors beyond the IQS campus, completing part of their studies by learning other ways of gaining knowledge and experience, getting out of their comfort zone, and becoming familiar with other cultures. For most students, it's their first experience of living away from home. This practice, which has increasingly become an option for all students in recent years, has now become an almost essential experience that is also highly valued by companies when they evaluate candidates during their selection processes.
In the field of research, international collaboration has an even longer history and a larger future path. Initially, collaborations were established when research staff attended international conferences and, as a result of exchanging technical information and presentations, there was an interest in working together. Collaboration was sought to take advantage of one another's experiences and the scientific and technological possibilities of each school. Joint research projects, working at other universities to learn new techniques, doctoral student exchanges, forming part of doctoral juries, and forging collaborations to request public funding for joint projects are just a few of the benefits that we all obtain. Collaborations are already a consolidated, necessary, and highly valued practice.
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to accompany an IQS delegation made up of professors, primarily from the Industrial Engineering Department at IQS, to the ICAM centre in Toulouse within the framework of the ICAM Research Days celebration. During this event, multiple ongoing research projects were presented that are being carried out by ICAM professors and students. We also had the opportunity to talk about IQS and how we work with the audience. Some participants were already familiar with IQS, while it was new information for others. Even professors with whom we have been collaborating for years were surprised by everything we do at IQS. I think we often sell ourselves short and we should invest even more in showing everything we offer and all of our capacities. That said, we were able to present our lines of research and discuss common interests. The best part was seeing the results a few months later and knowing that we did more than just making new acquaintances – the trip had a much greater purpose. We will continue to promote student exchanges even more, especially for students in their final years. Above all, we will initiate new collaborations with other professors, share research projects, and continue to grow. We firmly believe that we can go further together.
This is just one example of more than a hundred collaborations we have with other universities and research centres around the world. These collaboration agreements and joint work commitments are based on initial trust and future prospects that are consolidated year after year when the results show how we should be proud to have research partners all over the world.
Dr Núria Vallmitjana
Director of IQS Tech Transfer