100 researchers from all over Galicia attended the “GRADschool, Skills for Postgraduate Researchers” course organised by the Barrié Foundation in collaboration with the Galician Ministry of Education and the three Galician universities

A hundred researchers from all three Galician universities took part in the GRADschool, Skills for Postgraduate Researchers course organised by the Barrié Foundation and the Galician Ministry of Education in collaboration with the universities in question and designed to develop transferrable skills in postgraduate research students.

GRADschools, which first appeared in the United Kingdom in 1968, are now established feature at leading British universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, Durham or Essex and are a flagship training and development programme for postgraduate researchers in the UK. The courses create an inspirational, challenging and experiential learning environment in which all participants will learn something new about themselves and take away skills, tools or information which will motivate them to complete their studies, further realise their potential, and enable them to make more informed choices about their future careers.

The Barrié Foundation and the Regional Government of Galicia have pioneered the introduction of this experience in Spain, in the form of two separate courses, one held in Santiago in October 2012 and the other in A Coruña in November of the same year.

GRADschool courses are designed to help participants to reflect upon and develop their transferrable skills, see team-building in action and evaluate the impact of their behaviour on others, develop their personal effectiveness and communications skills, and manage the next step of their career. They are interactive and adopt an experiential or ‘learning by doing’ approach. Presentations and information giving are complementary elements within the programme, the main driver being the active participation by the researchers themselves in the training sessions and networking activities.

The courses were led by a team of British researchers and consultants from VITAE (a UK-based organisation devoted to designing and delivering skills-based courses for publicly funded research councils since 1964), accompanied by Spanish tutors drawn from the worlds of business and research. Participants were split into groups of 6-9 people who work in a range of simulated situations relating to business or academic environments. Each group is supported by a tutor who assists its members to review the experiences of the day and make links between what participants have experienced and their own research or PhD and their future career.

One of the purposes of this educational programme is to open participants up to Europe and the rest of the world. The world of research is highly globalised, and in order to maximise the value of their work many researchers need to communicate what they are doing in a language that is not their own, mainly English. An added advantage of GRADschool courses is that they help participants to improve the communication and foreign language skills.

For further information, see our dedicated GRADschoolswebsite.

Compete Barrié: 60 Galician undergraduates and recent graduates receive training in cross-curricular competences such as communication, interculturalism, leadership and negotiation

In September 2012 the Barrié Foundation held its first Compete Barrié seminar, a four day educational programme on global employability skills, attended by 60 undergraduates and recent graduates from the three Galician universities. The programme was taught by faculty from IE (Instituto de Empresa), one of the world’s leading business schools.

With this initiative, which comes at zero cost to participants, the Barrié Foundation further reinforces its activity in the sphere of education, the spotting and fostering of talent and its commitment to excellence through the delivery of comprehensive premium quality educational programmes and the introduction of a management model designed to cover needs in all the different  educational stages.

Compete Barriéis a programme offering training in cross-curricular competences that are rarely included in traditional degree courses, but are essential for enhancing the careers and international employability of young graduates. The programme is divided into three sessions devoted to theory (communication and interculturalism, leadership, negotiation) and a practical networking session with representatives from the Galician business community. The first of the theory sessions focused on communicationas one of the most sought-after management skills, over and above financial or technical expertise, and interculturalism, which showed participants the ways in which cultural differences can impact companies and organisations and how to adapt to them, given that we now inhabit a globalised world. The second session was devoted to negotiation, enabling those attending to understand and properly manage the key factors in any negotiation process: how to prepare for it, the most efficient way to attain one’s won objectives and how to reach lasting agreements. The final session looked at leadership, showing participants the path that anyone who aspires to leadership has to follow, and how best to manage it.

The Compete Barrié programme is designed to be open to collaboration with the business community, and this inaugural seminar welcomed representatives from leading Galician companies and institutions, who contributed to providing our best undergraduates and recent graduates with the cross-curricular competences they need in order to succeed. This is the only way to endow the task of spotting, nurturing and retaining top talent in Galicia with real meaning.

Mentores Barrié

Mentores Barrié es la red de mentoring de la Fundación Barrié, una red formada por profesionales, directivos, investigadores y empresarios, que actúan como mentores de personas vinculadas con la Fundación por alguno de sus proyectos formativos.

Entra en educaBarrié

EducaBarrié es un nuevo canal de comunicación entre la Fundación Barrié y la comunidad educativa. www.educabarrie.org nació en octubre de 2011 como espacio de encuentro e intercambio, un laboratorio en red de experiencias educativas innovadoras que aglutina toda la oferta educativa de las áreas de actuación de la Fundación.