PROGRAM GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Cultural policy developed in the last few decades has consolidated the cultural space as an instrument of expression and social consensus. This ever-increasing presence of culture in our daily lives brings with it the need for professionals able to direct and manage cultural action programs, both from the public and private standpoint. In 1989 the University of Barcelona created the first third year cultural management program in Spain with the support of the Diputació of Barcelona, to provide an answer to the need for training and modernization in the professionals doing cultural work.

The transformation of the sector in the last decade, with a greater emphasis placed on professionalism, efficiency and public/private co-responsibility, adds new tonalities to the design of cultural policy and cultural management tasks. 

ADMINISTRATION

The initial program was born in 1989 and has a vast body of accumulated experience in its teaching team. All courses are primarily directed by those professionals in the cultural sector with academic qualifications and working experience. The composition of the resulting group enriches the work in seminaries and the collective debate with the information bought in, not only by the faculty, but also by the participants themselves. Indeed, the educational team led by Lluís Bonet has made every effort to structure contents, collect experiences and documentation, elaborate on and simulate exercises, design new teaching methods and present the best cases and speakers.

The teaching team for the different courses is composed of professionals who specialize in the management of cultural co-operation programs and services, directors at the principal Catalan, Spanish and international cultural institutions, together with university professors of allied academic disciplines. Each of the teaching modules will include theoretical information provided by the co-ordinator and other invited professors, as well as collective seminary discussion work. A relevant role will be played by the visits and interviews with people responsible in cultural intervention teams and projects. A selection of readings, bibliographic references and other reference documents will be provided in the different modules as a complement to the teaching material. The course language will be Spanish for all the courses, excepting for the Masters in Cultural Management and the Diploma in Show Management and Production, which will be taught in Catalan, and the Diploma in International Cooperation and Cultural Management, which is in English.

A fundamental aspect of the programmes consists of the production of a cultural management project, a project that must be developed throughout the course. The project will have the individual assistance of a tutor. Practical work in a cultural organization is also a fundamental aspect of the program. Through the Socrates program of the European Union some of this work can be done in different European cities. 

One of the aims of the courses is to demonstrate the cultural policies in other european coutries and in the European institutions. For this reason, some weeks or weekends take place in Brussels, Montpellier, Madrid, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Torino...