For the sixth year in a row the UIC’s Faculty of Humanities has organized the UNIV Forum, a space for interdisciplinary dialogue among students from different universities. This year's edition of the forum involved the participation of students from the UIC, the Universitat de Barcelona, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, ESADE, Universitat Abat Oliva, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and, for the first time, the Universitat d’Andorra. The participants were drawn from many different academic disciplines and presented their papers on different aspects of this year’s main topic before a panel of judges.

This year’s edition of the forum was brought to a close by Joana Ferrer, who is not only a teacher, but also a representative of the General Directorate of Secondary School Education, part of the Government of Catalonia’s Ministry of Education. In her talk, “Friendship and Learning: Building Blocks for Citizens”, Ferrer talked about the importance of friendship in the context of education. “Friendship helps you accept difference and that’s vital in education. Learning within a context of difference is extremely enriching”, she explained.

Ferrer went on to highlight the fact that friendship is a journey, a process in which we never stop learning. “That’s why you need to create positive environments that generate efficient responses. It’s a learning process that is affected by many factors. Until now, we’ve been taught using a linear curriculum, but it no longer works. The diagram of learning is holistic, not linear”, she continued. “We need citizens who are competent, not competitive – in other words, citizens who have a toolkit of knowledge and highly varied resources, and know how to use them to solve the problems they encounter in everyday life".

Ferrer’s talk marked the end of this sixth edition of the UIC’s UNIV Forum. The students are now waiting to find out which three papers will be awarded a grant to take part in the international edition of the forum, which will be held in Rome during Holy Week.