Academia in Spain

[Cynthia]

(I just noticed another post about universities in Spain--just to clarify, I'm asking about working in the Spanish university system)

Hi,

I've been, well, obsessed with Spain and moving to Spain for about a year and a half. In this time, moving to Spain has gone from a dream, into something I'm acutally planning on doing. There is only one piece of the puzzle left that I need to work out.

I'm a graduate student in the US working on my PhD in Political Science. Once I complete my degree, I'll be looking for teaching and/or research positions within the field, and I'm wondering how compatible this is with living in Spain. From what I've been told about academia in Spain, and the Spanish university system in general, it is very different from the United States' system (or the UK's). My admittedly non-expert source tells me that this is especially true for my discipline, and possibly for other social sciences as well, in that these fields in Spain (and in much of Europe) are approached in more of a qualitative or normative fashion.

Further, I've been told that academic positions in Spanish universities are given to graduates of those universities, or to people who have good connections within the relevant departments. Thus, it may be pretty difficult for me to find an academic position, as I don't have the connections.

I was hoping someone may be able to shed some light on this for me. I know of at least one international relations institute in Barcelona which draws much faculty from the United States, but it's difficult to tell about the state of academia generally in Spain.

Thanks for any advice or information.

[Marina]

Hi Cynthia and and welcome to the forums. It's very good to read (in this and other posts) how passionate you feel about Spain and learning Spanish!


Regarding your interest in working for university I would suggest trying to find a teacher exchange program from the university you have studied in - or one in you country - might make things a lot easier, as it is true that lots of the starting positions are given to the teacher's best student or at least the one that shows most interest in the subject.

Good luck!
Marina.

[rod]

Following on from Cynthia's query, does anybody know where Spanish University job vacancies are advertised, or indeed if they are advertised at all.

In the UK it's easy: there are the newspapers the Guardian and Times Higher and a website jobs.ac.uk. But are there Spanish equivalents? I asked my intercambio who has just got an academic position in Madrid, but she wasn't really able to come up with anything. I guess she must have heard of her job by word of mouth (por el boca a boca?), rather than by advertisement.

As a mid career academic in the social sciences who wants to move to Spain, the obvious way in would be for me to try to get a job in a Spanish University, and I genuinely think I would have something to offer. But is my perception that it is very difficult for extranjeros to get jobs in Spanish University departments correct? Any views or information welcome.

[Marina]

I would try private universities as public ones usually employ people that has study there. I would try to contact the universities directly by sending cv in an e-mail, you can find a list of them here (http://idcrue.dit.upm.es/universidades/Listado_universidades-privadas.html).

Good luck!

[rod]

Thanks very much for this, Marina. It confirms what I have heard so far about how Spanish Universities tend to appoint from within, but I didn't realise that there were differences between the public and private sector in this respect, so that's very useful.

Anybody else with any experience of (or information on) trying to get a job in Spanish Universities?

[Mike_2]

Hola Cynthia! I check this forum once in a while and I just found your post. I have recently accepted a job offer at a university in Salamanca and my wife and I are planning to move in the spring. So, it is possible, but it does help to have an enchufe in the system to help you out. In my case, my wife studied at university in spain for nearly 10 years (not in Salamanca though), so she knew a lot about the sytem in general. Through international scientific meetings we became aquainted with a couple of professors at the university so when an opening came up I had support from the inside, so to speak. There are some programs for postdoctoral research in Spain that you can apply to. First and formost is the programa Ramon y Cajal, which will give you 5 years salary and at some universities will be converted to a permanent job at the end. I think there is also a new investigator program from el ministerio de educacion y ciencia. Possibly, also from EU sources such as the Marie Curie fellowship program.

It is my understanding the Spain's university system is quite different from other countrys but in the next few years they will be making a lot of changes to conform with mandates from the EU. Other things are changing too - Recently I have seen internationally advertised job openings for research positions that never would have been opened up internationally in the past. In my case, the people that hired me said that they are hoping that I can teach in english. They want to offer classes in english so they can attract more students from abroad.

Well, that's all for now. Good luck!
Mike

[Marina]

Congratulations Mike, we hope to hear from landing in Spain and life in Salamanca in Spring!

What will you be teaching???

[Mike_2]

Hi Marina - I'll be teaching Biology. I'll keep you all posted with our progress. We still have to decide when to move, which will probably be in April. I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions for you all about life in Spain, moveing to spain, etc etc. Already there's a lot of great info in the forums. Fun!

[Marina]

That sounds wonderful!
Whenever you have a question you know where we are!

[rod]

Congratulations, Mike. So it can be done! You say that your new employer is hoping that you can teach in English - but does that mean you may also have to teach in Spanish? Even though my language level is supposed to be 'Advanced', I think I would find teaching in Spanish very scary at the moment.

Ideally I would need another year living in Spain to get to the required level, hence why I think I would need either a research post or one that would involve teaching in English initially - and I'm not sure how many of those there would be in my subject area (journalism/communications), if any at all.

[Mike_2]

Hello Rod - Well, my spanish is still at a beginner level so teaching in spanish will be quite impossible for a while! :) Actually, my responsibilities for at least the first year or two will be to conduct research. I imagine that I will eventually be teaching classes both in english and spanish though.
But, for now, my main goal is to learn spanish!
-Mike

[valevale]

Hi Mike,

Although I'm far from deciding on a career (3rd year undergrad), I am considering teaching at an undergraduate level after pursuing some extra schooling. I was wondering how the biological sciences concentration is in Spain...because I know that the study abroad programs suggested by my university were in countries like Australia, S. America, etc. It seems like business is definitely a popular emphasis, but few universities emphasize the biological sciences. Also, are more and more science courses being taught in English now?

Thanks,
Kristina

[Mike_2]

Hi Kristina - Other than medicine, the biological sciences usually aren't promoted much by universities anywhere. The larger universities in Spain, though, have graduate programs that are just as good as elsewhere. I've been told that tuition in spain (and europe in general) is much cheaper than in the US, so there's another reason to study in spain! As for classes being taught in english, you probably won't find many except for those that are part of international exchange programs. but, if you make your first few classes spanish immersion ones then you'll have no problem keeping up in other classes taught in spanish. -Mike