The REDFUE will participate in the R&D&I, Digital Society, Labour and Social Security and European Union commissions through several of its associates who will join as members.
The Spanish Network of University Business Foundations (REDFUE) has signed a partnership agreement with the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations (CEOE) to increase its visibility and representation within the business world and to promote its objectives and proposals to a wider audience, having a voice in relevant debates.
The importance of this agreement lies in the significant influence of CEOE in the formulation of economic and business policies in Spain and the opportunity it offers to REDFUE to influence these policies and to promote initiatives that benefit its members and encourage the better development of university-business relations.
The identification of synergies and opportunities for collaboration with companies or other organisations that share similar interests and values are developed in the four commissions in which REDFUE will participate, which are: Research, Development and Innovation and European Union, with Jorge Izquierdo, vice-president of REDFUE and manager of the General Foundation of the University of Valladolid; Digital Society, with Eduardo Manrique de Lara, managing director of the University of Las Palmas Foundation; and Labour and Social Security, with Carmen Palomino, director of the University-Business Foundation (FUE), as a vocal member.
After signing the agreement, Fernando Martínez, president of REDFUE and executive vice-president of the FUE, recalled that ‘at REDFUE we have been working, for more than 25 years, with the commitment to make society progress through the tools that collaboration between universities and companies puts within our disposal. To this end, we rely on the boards of trustees of our associates, in which 47 Spanish universities and more than 230 companies and organisations are represented’. Furthermore, he added that ‘through this partnership agreement with CEOE, two great institutions that work for our country and that share the interest of promoting public-private collaboration join forces so that together we can contribute to improving the future of Spain’.
For his part, José Alberto González-Ruiz, Secretary General of CEOE, expressed his satisfaction with the partnership agreement signed with REDFUE. ‘This agreement is in line with the efforts that we, at CEOE, believe must be made to strengthen the link between business, education and training. We need to promote training models that focus on employability. To this end, we advocate that business and the education system, especially at university level, should work in a coordinated manner and stop working separately, as has so frequently been the case. This is the only way we will be able to face the challenges that companies and society as a whole have ahead of us’, emphasised González-Ruiz.