A new school, that plans in time to rival the London School of Economics, has been launched in Barcelona, Spain.
The Barcelona Graduate School of Economics plans to be “a centre of excellence in advanced economics studies”.
The school will open for business next September and will initially offer five, full-time masters programmes taught in English and aimed at international graduates wishing for a career in academic research or management. Programmes will be a year in duration and will range between €10,000 and €12,000, significantly cheaper than many masters currently on offer at European schools.
It is anticipated that the first five programmes on offer will be masters in economics, finance, corporate and public regulatory law, competition and market regulation and economics of science and innovation. And it is hoped that over the next five years a further 15 masters programmes, focused on economics and social science, will be rolled out.
Founder and president of the Barcelona GSE, Andreu Mas-Colell, a professor of economics at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona says the new institution will embrace four key values.
“Academic excellence, a favourable environment, competititve costs – in comparison with other similar programmes in Europe – and finally the innovative dynamism of a young institution with optimum potential for growth.”
The masters programmes will be supervised by the school’s scientific council, comprising 28 academics from the fields of economics and social science and including 10 Nobel Laureate economists. Hugo Sonnenschein, former president of the University of Chicago will be president of the BGSE scientific council.
Founding partners of Barcelona GSE include public and private organisations; the Department of Economics and Business at Pompeu Fabra University, the Department of Economics and Economic History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Institute of Economic Analysis, the Superior Council of Scientific Research and the Centre of Investigation in International Economy.
Caixa Catalunya, Banc Sabadell, La Caixa, the FemCat Foundation and the Agbar Group are also supporters of the venture. Private financing of €1.25m will be provided over the next five years by the Consolider Programme, an initiative launched by the Ministry of Education and Science, to promote research.
