Blockchain has been part of the XXIV CRUE Conference of General Secretariats of the Spanish universities, which have taken place at the University of La Laguna, from November 21 to 23, which have been attended by more than 80 people linked to the General Secretariats of 40 academic centers across the country.

The objective of the conference was to jointly address different cross-cutting issues and problems that affect the ordinary functioning of universities.

Raúl Rubio, partner of Baker Mckenzie and legal advisor of SmartDegrees, has described the legal aspects associated with the use of blockchain in the university field. In particular, he highlighted the following aspects:

  • It is necessary to break the paradigm: blockchain is not equal to bitcoin.
  • It has key advantages: trust, security, reduction of time and cost in transactions.
  • There are public and private blockchain, this being the preferred option of most of the regulated entities.
  • In the university field it has the following uses:
    • Degrees and academic certificates (avoids manipulations, facilitates interaction with employers)
    • Credential Management
    • Monitoring and control of grants and subsidies
    • “Tokenization” of products and services
    • Financing
    • Digital protection of the results of research and management of intellectual property
    • Cryptocurrency Acceptance
  • Legal and regulatory developments are still limited worldwide, so the existing law applies to each case. There is no single approach for all cases, it depends on the use case.

For more details on the blockchain presentation and its impact on universities, click here. The conference program is shown here.

Related article: SmartDegrees participates in the first Blockchain Event of CRUE