València (EFE).- The president of the ADEIT Foundation and the Social Council of the University of Valencia, Vicent Soler i Marco, assures that continuous training is necessary in such a changing environment, not only in new technologies but in aspects such as conception of the company or commercial relations.
The knowledge acquired during a person’s academic training can become obsolescent because “everything changes” and you have to adapt to understand the complexity of the world, an adaptation that also affects the university, according to Soler, professor of Applied Economics and former Minister of Finance of the Valencian Government, in an interview with EFE.
University-company relationship
The university-company relationship defines it as essential and always subject to improvement, but in the current moments of competitive strategies of companies that must go towards product differentiation, increased productivity, added value and innovation, human capital is crucial. . “And the university is the main factory of human capital”, he points out.
A relationship of mutual interest in which the university must be aware that its studies have to adapt to changes in the environment and that graduates have increasingly better training.
Now “it is more necessary than ever” continuous training, adapted to the new needs of the production model, either thanks to master’s degrees or in the companies where the personnel who have received basic training (degrees) at the university work.
As a starting point to achieve this training, the university must be there as a “supplier” of knowledge of human capital.
knowledge transfer
Soler considers that the transfer of knowledge from the university to the company begins with university education, in which the student internalizes the knowledge that will later be taken to professional life.
Another level consists of research, through which knowledge is transferred to the business world and social life, for example, through research aimed at social transformation.
There is another aspect, according to Soler, the “spin offs”, companies based on academic research, which can develop great research but have to have “business consistency”, a good work plan and business management to move forward.
“Where is human capital manufactured most powerfully? In the universities, and the public ones, they live on the public resources that come from the taxes of the citizens, who have to see how their efforts have a return in the training of people. It is a way of returning to society what she puts in ”, she defends.
ADEIT Foundation
Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Valencia, Vicent Soler replaces María Emilia Adán at the head of ADEIT, who for the last four years has been at the head of both the Social Council and the ADEIT Foundation of the University of Valencia.
The Foundation has been working since its creation more than 35 years ago to serve as a meeting point between the University of Valencia and its socioeconomic environment. To do this, it develops programs in three main axes: training, employability and entrepreneurship.
It has been a year now since he left his position as Minister of the Government of Ximo Puig, then about to turn 73, after preparing seven budgets for the Generalitat at the Botànic and having repeated as Minister with a socialist president -with Joan Lerma in 1985-.
Since his appointment at ADEIT, he has dedicated himself to speaking with “all the people who have things to say” in the academic part and in the part of the social agents, and he will continue with these meetings until the summer.
Knowledge of the Valencian economy
A position in which he considers that he can contribute and to which his career in the university field is endorsed -he was director of the Department of Economic Structure at the University of Valencia and Research Scholar at the London School of Economics, and dean of the Faculty of Economics – such as his knowledge of the Valencian economy and its productive fabric.
“It is very important to assert this mutual interest and the best way is to compare the opinions, objectives and interests of the two parties and try to get them closer, to converge,” he explained when asked if he would undertake new actions as president.
He prefers not to specify about it: “It is impossible, I have to learn all the possibilities that people offer, it cannot be done hastily”, and he adds that the Foundation and the Social Council have carried out a lot of work over the years. years and will follow a