UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia and Banco Santander, via Santander Universidades, renewed this morning their collaboration agreement with the planning of new joint actions.  The relationship that both institutions have been developing since 2011 is offering great advantages in terms of research, employability, entrepreneurship or Social Responsibility, which is reflected in many joint actions they have carried out for the benefit of the university community.

The agreement was initialled by José Luis Mendoza, president of UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, and José María García de los Ríos, director of Agreements and Sponsorship of Santander Universidades. José Luis Mendoza García, director of Institutional Relations, was also present on behalf of UCAM, as well as José Miguel Lorente, regional director of Santander in our region, and Juan Manuel Núñez, director of institutional relations, on behalf of the entity.  

Regarding this agreement, José María García de los Ríos highlighted that “it includes various actions in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility”. “These actions include a scholarship programme to access education for students with delicate socio-economic situation, as well as various international mobility programmes”, he pointed out.

For his part, José Luis Mendoza García, director of Institutional Relations at UCAM, said that “this is a very important agreement because we hereby renew for four years our relation with Santander Universidades. We have been working together for 8 years now and our work basically has three important lines: support to entrepreneurship with training courses; support through the Chair of Corporate Social Responsibility, which is part of the Santander chair network, and support to initiatives, scholarships, internship and mobility programmes for university students, so we cover quite a broad spectrum of actions at the university”.

Creativity and innovation

Many activities are carried out as a result of the agreements between both institutions (UCAM-Santander).

One example is the Chair of Entrepreneurship in the agri-food field, created in 2015 and ground-breaking at the time, on which they will continue to work. Last year, the conclusions of a research study on the ‘Approach to the dimensioning of the Agri-food System in the Region of Murcia’ were presented. Likewise, the Chair of Corporate Social Responsibility stands out as it organised last year a national meeting on SDG and Circular Economy in which representatives from a large number of Spanish universities in this field participated.

Banco Santander will also continue to support the Industrial Doctorate Programme of UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, thus fostering innovation and university-company knowledge transfer. 

Concerning scholarships, the agreement also includes a programme to help new students in vulnerable situations to study, as well as collaboration by the entity in the Eco Short Film Festival ‘La Luciérnaga Fundida’.

Furthermore, the University-Company relationship is promoted through the ‘UCAM Business Club’ Programme, which brings together more than 60 sponsoring companies of the football and basketball teams of UCAM.