The crisis forces us to establish priorities when deciding what to do with public money. ZLC is one of the most promising bets to achieve economic growth.
Alejandro Serrano – Heraldo de Aragón, Sep 1, 2012| Spain
Original article is aquí (in Spanish)
The years of economic bonanza drew many public and semipublic initiatives to our region geared to incentivizing economic growth in the region. Aramón, walqa, and Motorland are all examples of initiatives of this kind. In the university realm, the existing infrastructure was extended to create new campuses in Huesca and Teruel. Lastly, as a result of an agreed commitment to logistics, given our region’s potential in this industry, we witnessed the creation of PLAZA—with its younger brothers PLHUS and Platea—on the one hand, and the establishment of Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC) by MIT (the world’s leading school of engineering), on the other. Years prior to joining this latter project, I already praised its creation and the commitment shown by the regional government to this project in this newspaper (April 2004, May 2005).
Source: Heraldo de Aragón
With the advent of the economic crisis, the rules of the game have undergone a profound change. It is no longer about achieving all the goals established at a lower cost, but rather about achieving the greatest number of goals on a restrictive budget. In other words, it has become necessary to establish priorities, because it is impossible to achieve everything, which implies abandoning certain commitments viable in the boom years in order to commit firmly to others. In this regard, it would be disastrous for our region to apply a ‘one size fits all’ economy, attempting to keep all the projects running by reducing the budget of all initiatives, good ones and bad ones, by a similar percentage.
What criteria should be followed to establish which projects should be given priority? Logically, focus should be placed on those projects that are aligned with the strategy of the region, which can be inferred from the electoral program presented by the governing party last year. It stated that Aragón should be a “territory of excellence in teaching”, “achieve an optimal collaboration between companies and University”, “attract international teachers and researchers” and seek excellence “in those areas of knowledge susceptible to becoming niches of excellence comparable with the best in the world”, mentioning logistics as the first example.
In this regard, Zaragoza Logistics Center has many of the attributes required to be part of the group of initiatives to be focused on. Some examples: The ZLC international masters course has been ranked the best logistics program in Spain in the last two years (El Mundo newspaper ranking). As to collaboration with companies, ZLC worked both with Aragon companies (two consultancy projects currently under way with Saica; seventeen alumni contracted by Transportes Carreras to date, …) and multinationals (the list is long: companies such as Adidas, Amazon, BASF, Caterpillar, Cummins, DHL, P&G or Roche have come to Zaragoza to finance projects or hire students). These brilliant students (from Aragón or from elsewhere) will eventually reach decision-making positions in the multinationals that are now hiring them. And it is then when the investment made will more than yield its return, in the form of job creation, projects or research centers.
The first significant initiative of this kind that comes off shall justify economically the existence of ZLC for more than a hundred years. But we have to give it more time. It is not fair to demand from ZLC in 10 years of existence something that nobody has demanded from the University of Zaragoza in 450 years. ZLC is still a “start-up” in the academic sector. MIT has just celebrated its 150th birthday. Harvard Business School celebrated its centenary in 2008. Excellence in academia takes its time. It is tempting to forget priorities and focus on short-sighted, short-term projects. But if we really want our region to become a reference for others and not turn it into a piece of land with no hope, we should continue to give our firm commitment to ZLC and other similar initiatives.
To know more about ZLC please follow the link www.zlc.edu.es
Blog de Alejandro Serrano 