BAUDILIO COTO GARCÍA (courses 2007/08 but also 2013/14)

Knowledge area:

Physical Chemistry.

Brief biography (approx. 100 words):

Ldo. DC. Chemistry, University of Oviedo, 1989. Dr. CC. Chemistry, Complutense University of Madrid 1994. University Professor in the area of ​​Physical Chemistry at the Rey Juan Carlos University. He has spent a total of 18 months abroad at the Technical Universities of Denmark, Nova de Lisboa and Kaiserslautern. His research lines focus on thermodynamics, phase equilibrium, theoretical models and simulation of complex mixtures. He has directed more than 100 student works and 9 doctoral theses, is the author of a book and 7 teaching publications, about 100 research articles, and more than 100 transfer reports, he has participated in 30 competitive projects and more than 60 with companies. .

Challenges and achievements during the years he was coordinator, strengths and weaknesses of the degree during this stage:

I was General Coordinator of the Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Sciences from the academic year 2007/08 to the academic year 2013/14 and of the Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Sciences from the academic year 2010/11 to the academic year 2013/14.

When I arrived at the coordination, the degree was taught in two groups (morning and afternoon), but with common elective and free-choice subjects, and a great effort was required to disseminate said offer and coordination. The Practicum subject required a wide range of places including internships in companies, in natural parks, in institutions and research work that required a lot of dedication to dissemination, coordination and assignment. In relation to this point, numerous agreements were negotiated with companies and institutions, among which the agreement with CONAMA (National Environmental Conference) stands out.

However, the most important thing is that the extinction of the Bachelor's Degree and the implementation of the Degree occurred, which required the preparation of the new plan, in accordance with Bologna, as well as the corresponding report. An extinction/implementation calendar was designed, and a gateway and a validation guide between both degrees. In this process, we participated in the CEDECA (Conference of Deans of Environmental Sciences, Granada 2008) and in the First University Meeting of the Degree in Environmental Sciences: results on the implementation of the degree (León 2013).

Quality commissions were created and coordination in all teaching aspects was improved.

I also want to highlight that the use of social networks began to support communication with students, especially Twitter, which proved to be very useful as a way to share news or even academic information of general interest and which had more than 1500 followers.

The strengths of the Environmental Sciences degree at the URJC have always been related to multidisciplinary training, the high percentage of practical credits, the presence of business professionals among the professors of the last courses, and the option for students to do internships. in companies in the sector. In both the bachelor's degree and the degree, several itineraries have been offered that each student has been able to adapt to their interest with the choice of electives. This has translated into graduates with great versatility and a lot of initiative.

One of the weaknesses was revealed with the economic crisis of 2008, showing that environmental sensitivity is reduced in times of scarcity. Thus, for example, it became difficult to find places for student internships, a situation that has taken years to recover. This situation was especially worrying for Environmental Sciences graduates due to the high number of universities that offer this degree.

Personal opinion on the impact of the degree on society:

The impact of this degree and its graduates on society is directly related to society's concern for environmental issues and, as a consequence, to the presence in almost all companies and institutions of environmental departments or managers. In these market niches, environmental science graduates fit perfectly since:

• They have general and adequate training to solve environmental problems.
• They have the training for better management of natural resources.
• They have a legal basis to adapt the activity of companies to environmental legislation.
• They can address improvements in recycling policies and strategies.