Josep Lluís Sirera, the new Vice Rector of Culture of the Universitat de Valencia, has been teaching and doing research for 34 years in the Universitat de Valencia, but accepted the challenge when Esteban Morcillo, the new Rector, nominated him for the social component of his work as a dramatist and scriptwriter outside the university. His major objectives are to take advantage of “in-house” talent and convert culture into an instrument to reach out to a broader society.
 

What is your plan as Vice Rector of Culture? We have a general plan established in the electoral programme which has to be adjusted to suit the specificity of a Vice Rector who programmes culture well ahead of time. We are now entering a period of transition between former Vice Rector Rafael Gil’s plan and the one we are going forward with.
What did you promise in terms of culture during the campaign? We promised that culture was going to get out on the streets of the La Nave more, and be directed at both the 55,000 people in the University community and society as a whole. We also promised to emphasise two of the University’s great resources, its rich cultural heritage, with buildings, paintings, the library and historical archives, and the staff, because we have a good quantity of poets, writers, novelists and visual artists on “payroll”. We are also going to pay special attention to emerging creators and new forms of artistic creation, because 95 percent of university students are 20 years old, interested in the art of their times, new artistic forms that are on the streets.
Does university culture in Valencia tend to be endogamic? Culture in the university has traditionally been the finishing touch, with many problems, with very strong ingredients and that, I would say, is even indigestible at times. Nevertheless, it is one of the qualities that the Universidad de Valencia has, with a heritage and human resources that, culturally, can produce very important fruit. Culture is an essential part of the university, and it has to be strengthened.
Should cultural policies be integrated with those of communication? Sometimes things are done that no one hears about. That’s right. Right now, there is a great exhibition in La Nave but very few people showed up to the private view, and it has had little repercussion. There is a serious problem of communication  The University doesn’t communicate well internally or externally, and culture is always the last priority. There is little communication, in spite of great exhibitions, to an important concert space, a theatre space for emerging young actors and actresses and creators. They are not heard of. One of the tasks of my Vice Rectorate is to unite the work in the heritage, cultural and artistic fields with a policy of communication, with a specific Vice Rectorate, and together transmit the image of the university to the wider community. Culture is an excellent means for better communication.
In these bad times, are you going to have to cut back on the University’s culture? That is an excellent question. I’m afraid that we will have to. During bad times, you always have to rely on your imagination, meaning working more for less, and rely more on group efforts, but nothing to shout about.
Is the alternative to strengthen “in-house” culture more? Of course. We have well-established human resources, and as we are a public university, these people should not limit themselves to their teaching and research qualities, but be creators as well. I’m thinking about novelists, poets, painters...
Are you going to demand it? No, I’m going to ask, beg, I will negotiate with them about something that the university owes them, which is recognising their artistic creativity, as a part of their activity as a professor. I am not going to demand it, I’m going to get them involved in concrete projects with concrete expectations. I won’t make them get on a boat that’s going nowhere.
Is the separation of spaces a problem for establishing a cultural policy? It is a very serious problem. I have directed the libraries and know what it means to have four central libraries with problems that are multiplied four times. It would be easier to have just one campus with only one central library. La Nau is an extraordinary building in terms of resources and assets, but Tarongers, for example, has cultural endowments problems, and a cultural project for an unusual space has to be created. Burjassot also has space problems, as does Blasco Ibáñez.
Has the cultural programme been elitist up to now? No. For professional reasons, I have more contact with the Theatre which has been able to attract an audience with a logical and rigourous programme, with a perfectly coherent defence of theatre in Valenciano. The exhibitions have not only been artistic, there has also been a socio-cultural content, such as those of the Arte en el exilio and the cultural heritage that was saved during the Civil War in Valencia. I don’t believe that this is elitist, the problem is one of attracting the public through better and more communication, better salesmanship, including to secondary school students. I would like to see them enter the University already familiar with it by having participated in its cultural activities.
Does sponsorship worry you? No, it doesn’t worry me. There are many forms of looking for sponsorship from financial institutions and businesses without breaking any laws or the public character of the project.
Why did you accept the post of Vice Rector? I’ve been a professor in the Universidad de Valencia for 34 years and have developed my research and investigation career, and I feel satisfied with both. I’ve also had some administration posts, such as the Dean of Languages and in the Directorate of Libraries, but no one had proposed that I should form part of the Rectorate team, not because of my teaching and research record, but because of my social projects and my work outside of the University as a dramatist and scriptwriter.