The UIB is determined to strengthen the Catalan language and reverse its decline in teaching and research

PalmThe University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) aims to guarantee the regular use of Catalan in all areas while simultaneously promoting multilingualism. The institution's Governing Council has approved the new Language Plan 2026-2030, which sets the language strategy for the coming years and focuses on the need to strengthen the presence of Catalan in teaching, research, and university administration. The document is based on the current sociolinguistic context, which the UIB considers "marked by the need to reinforce the use of Catalan in all areas." The main objective is to encourage the normal use of the university's own language as the standard means of communication and work within the university community, without neglecting its international reach. In this regard, the University is committed to a model that combines local roots with openness, using Catalan, Spanish, and English as working languages.

• The new plan establishes as priorities increasing the linguistic and intercultural competence of staff and students, ensuring the quality of institutional and academic texts, and guaranteeing the linguistic rights of members of the university community. It also aims to strengthen the use of Catalan as the primary language of professional activity and promote it in all areas of university life: institutional, teaching, research, and administration. Among the planned actions are: The implementation of a language training plan for all groups within the UIB;
• Monitoring the use of Catalan in institutional events, social media, and internal communications;
• The dissemination of linguistic quality criteria and autonomy resources for the university community;
• The consolidation of the language pairs program and the linguistic reception for students and staff from outside the Catalan linguistic domain;
• Promotion of teaching and research in Catalan, in line with Executive Agreement 14748/2023, which also encourages the writing of final degree projects and doctoral theses in this language.

With this plan, the UIB aims to reaffirm its commitment to linguistic diversity, quality, and social responsibility, and to consolidate its position as a university that "combines local roots and internationalization in its academic and cultural activities."

A fragile health

According to figures compiled by the UIB's data department, in the 2024-2025 academic year, 41.96% of the 3,254 undergraduate courses were taught in Catalan, a percentage that, nevertheless, was better than the previous year's 40.04%. One indicator that highlights the state of Catalan at the UIB is the language in which students complete their Final Degree Projects (TFG). In the 2022-2023 academic year, 66.51% of theses from the Faculty of Education were submitted in Catalan, but only 1.61% from Medicine; 7.83% from Nursing and Physiotherapy; and 14.13% from Law.

Data from the university's Language Policy Report shows that the use of the native language in doctoral thesis defenses is practically nonexistent. In fact, in 2022-2023 it was used in only 8.69% (10) of the presentations, while the previous year the percentage was 8.47% (10). In both cases, both Spanish and English were used instead of the native language. In 2022-2023, 61 theses were defended in Spanish and 44 in English, and in the preceding academic year, 64 and 44, respectively.

Regarding undergraduate studies, the Faculty of Education was the only center where more than half of the students chose to write their Final Degree Projects (TFG) in Catalan during the 2022-2023 academic year (66.5%). Following behind were the Faculties of Science (35.4%) and Philosophy and Letters (35.22%).Law (12.3%)The Polytechnic School (11.13%), Tourism (9.90%), Nursing and Physiotherapy (7.83%), Economics (5.2%), Psychology (3.07%), and Medicine (1.58%) also had high percentages of final degree projects written in Catalan. However, the results were better than in the previous academic year: in 2022-2023, 29.85% of final degree projects were written in Catalan, compared to 22.99% the previous year. Furthermore, the use of the region's own language in the writing of master's theses is also precarious: 34.84% of those in the 2022-2023 academic year were written in Catalan, one percentage point lower than the previous year (36.06%).