Early this month, the Ibero-American University Network for Company Incubation celebrated its first board meeting in Santander to define its foundational aims and create a first strategic action plan. Founded last December on the initiative of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), the Universitat de Santiago de Compostela (USC), and Banco Santander. At this foundational stage, the network is made up also of the following centers: the Universitat Autònoma de Madrid, the Universitat Complutense de Madrid, the Universitat de Cantabria, the Pontifícia Universitat Catòlica de Xile, the Universitat Federal de Sao Paulo, the Universitat Nacional Autònoma de Mèxic and the Institut Tecnològic i d'Estudis Superiors de Monterrey.

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Then initial nucleus of the Ibero-American University Network for Company Incubation is comprised of the bioincubator the UB is developing in the Barcelona Science Park and Uninova, the company incubator of the USC. These bodies, along with the support of the Banco Santander, have as their main aim the training of multidisciplinary teams to promote the transference to society of research results, especially from the life sciences. Thus, the three founding bodies and the remainder of the Spanish and Ibero-American institutions will put into operation joint projects that will enable the creation of 500 university-derived companies (spin-offs ), at a minimum, in the next five years.

This first board meeting of the Network was carried out with the aim in mind of planning the activities that will be developed by each center or institution, as well as the establishment of internal coordinating bodies, such as the Directing Council, presided over by the rector of the UB, Màrius Rubiralta, and which will be made up of nine rectors from the promoting universities and five people proposed by the Banco Santander. The rector of the University of Sao Paulo, Suely Vilela, has been named vice-president and the USC will develop the coordination of the Technical Commission.

Additionally, on Saturday, 5 May the general board meeting of Universia took place. As the largest world network of universities, Universia has a total of 985 universities from Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. In the course of the board meeting, the president of Universia, Emilio Botín, announced the granting of 1,500 new scholarship to promote the mobility of Spanish and Ibero-American professors and students.