Eduardo González
King Philip VI and Queen Letizia presided yesterday at the Palacio de Viana in Madrid over the launch of the Spanish Cooperation Scholarships portal, a platform that brings together the scholarship, assistantship and internship programs of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the Fundación Carolina.
“In particularly difficult times, such as the pandemic we have been experiencing for almost a year now”, it is of “special value to continue looking to the future and betting on the illusion and hope of young students and professionals from different countries, especially from Latin America, to give them more possibilities and tools that contribute to their preparation and training”, said the King during his speech at the closing of the event, organized by the Secretary of State for International Cooperation.
The Spanish Cooperation Scholarships “constitute one of the flagships of our foreign action in the field of international solidarity” and are “the reflection of a job well done, coordinated and oriented to the common purpose of strengthening capacities to, ultimately, contribute to the development of our partner countries”, he continued. Besides, he added, these scholarships have a “real and visible effect in the short and long term, because in addition to all the social and economic benefits they bring, they also help to create a more committed and supportive citizenship”.
For her part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, stated during the opening of the event that “the joint work of AECID and Fundación Carolina is directly linked to the priorities set by this Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, which are, she explained, “to promote international cooperation, intensify public-private partnerships, involve universities more and, not least, promote gender equality as an important hallmark of our external action, all within the framework of Spain’s new External Action Strategy”.
According to the minister, “the international cooperation system is undergoing a profound change” that requires “a new type of advanced cooperation” aimed at “designing public policies”, that goes “beyond the traditional division between north and south” and that includes among its priorities “the promotion and increase of capacities, technology transfer and cooperation in research, innovation and development”.
Likewise, the Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Ángeles Moreno Bau, stated that these scholarships are not only “an international benchmark of excellence in cultural, university and scientific matters and a boost to talent in partner countries and in Spanish society”, but that they have “a very important impact on our economy”, as was made clear, she recalled, in a recent ICEX study revealing that international students enrolled in Spain generated direct income of almost 3.8 billion euros in the 2018-2019 academic year.
Due to limitations due to COVID-19, face-to-face attendance at the event was limited to authorities, including the directors of the AECID, Magdy Martínez-Solimán, and the Fundación Carolina, José Antonio Sanahuja, in addition to the secretary general of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), Rebeca Grynspan, and representatives from academia and the private sector as patrons of both institutions.
Under the slogan Scholarships that change lives, the new website provides direct access for applicants to the various links to the calls for applications and brings together the complete offer of both institutions for 2021, which includes more than a thousand scholarships worth 14 million euros. Ten percent of the scholarships are intended for Spanish citizens and the remaining 90 percent for nationals of Spanish Cooperation partner countries. Since its creation, 38,000 people from the five continents have benefited from the Spanish Cooperation Scholarships promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, especially in the Ibero-American community, where most of the priority countries are located.
