The USA students participated in academic activities with the URV Master’s Degree in Business Management and visited companies from different economic sectors in our region

Last week, the Faculty of Business and Economics at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili welcomed 18 students from the Master’s programme in Labor and Human Resources at Penn State University (USA), accompanied by faculty members. The academic stay, coordinated by professors Mireia Valverde and Nadima Hassan, combined teaching activities, company visits and opportunities to discover the local region.

At the beginning of the visit, the students were welcomed at the Faculty with an institutional reception session, where they were introduced to the Faculty’s teaching and research activities and to its academic programmes in the field of economics and business.

During the stay, the USA students took part in a Master’s Degree in Business Management session, where they shared classroom activities with students of this programme. The session was jointly designed by faculty from both institutions and delivered by a professor from Penn State University, creating a space for academic exchange and discussion between students from both universities.

During the week, the students and staff from both universities also visited companies and institutions from different economic sectors in the province, aiming at first-hand learning how human resource management operates in our regional context organisations. Specifically, they visited BASF, Lear (Martorell), PortAventura World, and the Móra d’Ebre Regional Hospital, where they had the opportunity to interact with responsible professionals for this area. In addition, faculty members from both institutions held meetings to exchange teaching experiences and practices.

Beyond the academic and business activities, the programme also included cultural activities and afternoon sightseeing visits around the region, aiming for a showcase of our territory social and cultural environment.

The academic relationship between the two institutions already existed through the CRANET network, the longest-running (more than 35 years) and most extensive (more than 40 countries) international research project on human resource management practices, in which the Human Factor, Organisations and Markets (FHOM) research group at the URV is the official representative in Spain.

This stay is a part of the internationalisation strategy of the Faculty of Business and Economics, aimed at promoting collaboration with leading international universities and providing students with academic experiences in a global environment.