Foreign cultural policy and cooperation between Russia and Spain in the field of Education [La política cultural exterior y la cooperación entre Rusia y España en la esfera de la educación]

Nowadays education can not only be studied within the framework of a country's internal politics, because, across national boundaries, education, like all spheres of human activity, tends to be global. And so it becomes one of the resources of the foreign policy of the states: a powerful and long-term perspective tool. Lately, many states support the development of soft power politics, and Education is a part of this strategy as one of the main instruments to create a positive image of the country abroad. Because of this, international collaboration in the field of Education is part of the geopolitical interests of the state. We consider that it is a current issue, not only to study the importance of international educational collaboration within the framework of the social policy of the country, as well as to analyze it from the point of view of international relations. In the article we research the comparative analysis of the foreign cultural policy of Russia and Spain. We describe the experience of the creation of the first Double Degree programs between Russia and Spain in the context of the educational development strategies of the two countries. We analyze the first results of the operation of these programs which represented a very important progress in the international collaboration of the two countries. © 2018 Universidad Complutense de Madrid. All rights reserved.