New grants from the Research and Universities Ministry to strengthen the use of Catalan in the research system

€200,000 allocated to CERCA research centres in Catalonia for initiatives promoting and using Catalan.

The Research and Universities Ministry has launched a new call to enhance the presence of Catalan in the knowledge system: grants for CERCA research centres in Catalonia to implement initiatives fostering and using the Catalan language within research institutes. Administered by the AGAUR (Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca), these new grants are part of the measures outlined in the Plan for Strengthening the Catalan Language in the University and Research System of Catalonia. They complement other ongoing programmes such as the Interlingua grants for promoting Catalan in universities, and funding for university textbooks and doctoral theses written in Catalan.

With a total budget of €200,000, each CERCA centre may submit up to four projects or initiatives, with a minimum funding of €2,000 per project. Applications must be submitted by 20 March. Eligible actions under this call include the design and implementation of sustainable multilingualism management initiatives to promote Catalan in research centres, the organisation of linguistic integration programmes for non-Catalan speakers joining the institutes, and the dissemination of resources for learning Catalan and using Catalan terminology in the scientific field, among others.

Grants for Doctoral Theses in Catalan

The Research and Universities Ministry also awarded grants at the end of last year for doctoral theses written in Catalan (TDCAT 2024) and submitted to Catalan universities. With an investment of nearly €80,000, a total of 129 grants were awarded, each worth approximately €600.

Of the 129 grants awarded:
– 63 were for theses written entirely in Catalan.
– 32 were for theses completed with the attainment of a doctorate with European distinction, written in Catalan and another official language of the European Union.
– 34 were for theses structured as a compendium of publications, where the non-published parts or chapters were written in Catalan.