The Director of the Catalan Institute for Public Security (ISPC), Annabel Marcos, and the General Secretary of UIC Barcelona, Belén Castro, signed a cooperation agreement within the framework of the new Master's Degree in Cybercrime this morning. This course will be offered by our university from next year onwards.  The Director of the Master’s programme, Dr José R. Agustina  also attended the event, along with the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Dr María Fernández Arrojo. 

The aim behind this agreement is to promote the development and professional improvement of police forces both in terms of the prevention of cybercrime and in terms of stopping, researching and proving it.  Based on this agreement the ISPC now forms part of the Advisory Council for this Master’s programme, and members of the police forces who would like to take this course will be offered a discount on their tuition fees.  

In the words of Annabel Marcos, the agreement is a step forward in cooperation between the Catalan Institute for Public Security and various universities in order to promote postgraduate and master’s programmes. Educating people about cybercrime is one of the key areas that must be addressed today. It is a strategic issue for the Catalan Department of Home Affairs and in that sense is connected to the Internet Safety Action Plan to protect minors. 

The Director of the Master’s programme, José R. Agustina, noted that “it is a pioneering postgraduate programme in Spain and in our field, which was set up as a response to growing educational needs in the field of the fight against cybercrime and it provides an analysis from a triple perspective: legal, criminological and procedural.” 

In recent years, the risks of cyber-victimisation have multiplied at an individual, community and business level. This increase in the number of people affected requires improved education for all the professionals who interact with cybercrime. Therefore the master’s programme  is aimed at members of police forces, judges, public prosecutors, lawyers, criminologists, compliance officers and other professionals who work in the field of cybersecurity (specialists, private investigators, company IT directors, etc).