21 February 2025
Bilbao Campus
Comillas Pontifical University hosted the eighteenth edition of the St. Francis Xavier academic debate competition on February 21 and 22 at its ICADE headquarters. The meeting brought together a hundred students belonging to the network of Jesuit university centers in Spain UNIJES who, organized in teams, defended the positions “for” and “against” before a jury that valued the skills of research, argumentation, exposition and conclusion and teamwork. All this during five qualifying rounds, quarterfinals, semifinals and final that focused on the question “Should organic agriculture be prioritized over industrial agriculture?”.
The team from the Instituto Químico de Sarriá was ranked first, with a team from the Universidad Pontificia Comillas in second place. A group from Loyola University won the mentions for “best teamwork” and “best speaker” went to Pablo Campos, a student from Colegio Mayor Loyola.
Encouraging students to think critically
The prize for the “best research work”, whose economic amount will be donated in full to the emergency service to assist the people most affected by the passage of the Dana storm in Valencia, was awarded to the students of the University of Deusto, specifically to the team formed by the students Julia Segarra of International Relations and Law, Irati Pastor of Psychology, Nerea Doval of Biomedical Engineering and Jon Rodriguez of ADE and Law, who acted as team captain. With this result, the Deusto Debate Club revalidated its vocation to jointly train students from different areas of knowledge.
