The Catalan Parliament requested the BTUI to speak before its Comission in order to explain the 43rd International Alliance on Time Use Research (IATUR) Congress, which took place during the Time Use Week in 2021. It was a global event that counted with the particition of researchers from different institutions, who discussed challenges and opportunities for the academia when studying time use.
Marta Junqué highlighted “the opportunity for linking time policies and time research in Catalonia.” Junqué pointed out three elements in favor of such a conclusion. Firstly, at the end of 2023 there will be new data on time uses by the Catalan population, with the survey comissioned by the Catalan Institute on Data and Statistics (IDESCAT). Secondly, the willingness to collaborate between public institutions and research groups already exists; and thirdly, there is the capability to create a multi-disciplinar research group on time uses in Catalonia, which could analyse and takle citizenry’s unrest with the current time organisation.
The BTUI also asked the Parliament to ask for sectoral reports on time uses when the Catalan Time Use Survey is published, so it can take into consideration how the citizenry organises its time in the different sectors. In that way, the institution will be able to designing and evaluating public policies will improve its citizenry’s lives.
The BTUI also highlighted the institutional consensus generated by time policies, as well as its joint strategy with the Catalan Government, the Barcelona City Council, the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona and the Province of Barcelona in order to put such policies on the local and international table. According to such a strategy, the Barcelona Declaration on Time Policies has been signed by more than 100 global organisations and the BTUI manages the Secretariat of the Local and Regional Governments TIME Network.
“In exceptional times, innovative policies shall be implemented. Time policies are a useful tool in order to improve citizenry’s wellness, as well as to promote productivity and efficiency of businesses” as shown by the World Economic Forum report (2019), which links the correlation between sleep and wealth per country.
