Catalonia will have a large joint warehouse that will provide storage service to all public museums, a new and in-demand project that for now is called Joint National Reserves, as announced by the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández, in the presentation of the draft budget for her department this Wednesday in Parliament. The accounts reach 1.7% of the Generalitat’s total resources for 2026, a figure closer to the objective of 2% with respect to the 2023 budgets, which represented 1.5%. “We are committed to reaching 2% in this legislature and setting it for the following years,” the head of Culture remarked.
The total budget for Culture is 524 million euros, 118 million more than in the last approved accounts, which were those for 2023. If it is compared with the accounts of that year, the increase is 29%. But in the last two years, the accounts of the Generalitat, extended due to lack of political consensus, have been updated each year with credit supplements to increase the items. The total executed by Culture in 2025 was 414.5 million euros, according to data from the Department. Thus, with the budget project of the Government of Salvador Illa, the improvement is 109 million compared to the previous year.
In total, the public budget project for this year foresees a record expenditure of 49,162 million euros, 10.3% more than in 2025. If approved, they will be the highest bills in history, also in the cultural section, but for now ERC, essential for the project agreed between the PSC and the Commons to go ahead, has presented an amendment to the entirety.
As detailed by the councillor, the main lines on which the numbers are based are to guarantee cultural rights, for which the cultural rights bill has been promoted; consolidate a well-structured cultural reference system, counting on existing entities and equipment; or value heritage as an element of collective identification, with investments with an expenditure of 119 million, such as the expansion of the MNAC (60 million), the creation of a digital culture center in La Foneria or the Casa de les Lletres. In addition, there are items to promote artistic creation and strengthen digital and audiovisual culture.
According to the Secretary General of Culture, Josep Maria Carreté, the Joint National Reserves, with a budget of 75 million, will be located in a large industrial warehouse that the Generalitat is about to acquire in a central location and easy access for all interested parties. Among the museums most stressed by storage space are those in Barcelona, such as the MNAC, the Macba or the Museu de Ciencias Naturales, but there are also many local centers that need more space for their collections. Concentrating everything in one place aims to save costs and is a model that works in other countries such as England or the Netherlands.
Almost 1.9 billion for universities
The Department of Research and Universities has also presented its budget in Parliament this Wednesday, which is 1,873 million, according to the published project (17% more than that designed in 2023), but which amounts to 1,950 adding additional funds. However, most of this increase, as happens in the rest of the areas, is to consolidate the spending of previous years in which work has been carried out with extended budgets and in which new initiatives have been financed with credit supplements, such as the reduction in tuition prices for degrees and masters applied this year (15 million) or that predoctoral aid goes from three to four years.
In this way, the budget executed at the end of last year already amounts to 1,830 million, which leaves little room for the Department to undertake new projects. However, the accounts present new developments, such as an increase of 12.5 million in the University Infrastructure Plan, destined for maintenance and renovation works on the campuses, although the Department already warns that, without Budgets, this increase will hardly be carried out.
Public universities will also see their baseline funding increased, which reaches 1,140 million, 140 million more than in 2023, a figure that is far from the 1,400 million that the rectors demand to be able to overcome the long years of cuts.
The Catalan university system has 12 universities – seven public and five private – and 313,680 students, of which 39,552 are international. The teaching staff is 18,820, to which are added 13,025 administration and service workers and 33,486 research staff.
The network of scientific infrastructures – including 63 research centers, three large infrastructures such as the Barcelona Supercomputing Center or the Alba Synchrotron, or 16 science parks.
