From 18 to 20 January a meeting took place with the international partners and institutions making up LEATECH, organised by the Universitat de Lleida. The main objective of this project is to prepare an international, integrated, innovative and high-level Master’s degree for the leather sector.

Within the framework of the Erasmus Mundus programme, this new international master’s degree combines the academic strengths of A3 Leather Innovation Center-UdL, which leads the project, with ITECH (France), EGE University (Turkey) and CIATEC (Mexico) to offer a 120-credit leather master’s degree that will qualify graduates for high-level positions in the global leather industry and its international value chain. The Master’s will be taught in English across the various Higher Education Institutions and will focus on innovation, circularity and sustainability.

The working meetings of this LEATECH project gathering took place at the Adoberia Bella. Jordi Vidal, executive director of the cluster, took part on behalf of Leather Cluster Barcelona, a collaborating partner in the new master’s degree project, together with other leather sector players such as AcexPiel, the Spanish Association of the Leather Industry for Foreign Trade, and the Confederation of National Associations of Tanners of the European Union, COTANCE.

During these sessions, topics addressed included the joint academic programme of the Master in Innovative Leather Technology, the cooperation actions launched through the project, and the Marketing and Communication strategy for attracting students from all over the world.

On this last point, the monthly virtual meetings organised by the Universitat de Lleida, within the framework of the LEATECH project, have been crucial in involving the partner universities in order to achieve maximum impact through their respective communication channels in the student recruitment activities carried out.

Leather Cluster Barcelona supports the new International Joint Master in Innovative Leather Technology and calls on all international leather sector players to take part in the LEATECH project.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting, transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving forward the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector. The cluster is an accredited body within the Catalonia Clusters programme and has the support of Acció.