a. Vision y mision

The e-MTA Campus project presented below is an improved version of the proposal for the project entitled the “Pyrenees – Mediterranean International Campus: Tourism Sustainability, Water and Advanced Research”, which was presented in the call for the International Campus of Excellence in 2010 and went straight to the second assessment stage for the call 2011.

The table below sets out the main improvements in the previous version that have been included in this project:

Vision and Aim

Based on the e-MTA Campus model as an engine for sustainable social and economic development, based on educational and research excellence and on promoting innovation through the use of new technologies, the vision to this project, proposed by the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), the University of Girona (UdG), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), can be summarised as follows:

Conversion of the Balearic Islands-Girona focal point, which will be extended by the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Cross-Border Research and Higher Education Group (PRES-PM) – in which not only the UIB and the UdG take part, but also the universities of Perpignan Via Domitia (UPVD) and the Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC, París VI) through the Banyuls-sur-mer oceanological observatory — an international reference for innovation in sustainable tourism and water management, and a connection hub for large-scale scientific collaboration in pre-existing fields of excellence.

This vision is implemented by means of a virtuous circle or a continuous integrating innovation and development model:

The e-MTA vision: a virtuous circle

In Spain, in the strategic fields of Tourism and Water, no other knowledge institution has such a solid and committed background as the UIB and the UdG, since the characteristics of its Mediterranean geographical, environmental, cultural and economic surroundings have provided them with this. The common denominator of their regional surroundings stems from the application of knowledge to such a valuable and necessary resource for life as water. Similarly, tourism has become their main source of activity and economic wealth and generates opportunities for people. Tourism and water are hence their common dominator and this has structured their capacity to provide significant contributions within the framework of the global society and is also a lever towards their future, founded on the basis of the Specialisation Lines of both universities.

Tourism and Water are thus the strategic fields on which the innovation efforts of the e-MTA Campus are focused, the Aim of which is structured as follows:

To achieve this, the e-MTA Campus will promote the so-called Excellence Flow applied to Tourism and Water consisting of developing basic and advanced research work and knowledge transfer generated through training people and scientific and technological collaboration with the productive sector.

A graph of the Excellence Flow is shown below: