The degrees represent new university programmes of study that have come out of the process of convergence towards the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and are gradually replacing traditional first and second cycle programmes.

Adaptation of study programmes to the EHEA consists in harmonising their duration and the learning and assessment methods used in the desire to promote the mobility of students and graduates and to develop a system of credit recognition and transfer for the entire European region.

These new programmes are organised into ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits, each of which is equivalent to about 25 hours of student work. The programme syllabi contain 240 ECTS credits (organised into 4 years), except for programmes in which Community Law regulations have established a higher number of credits. This is the case of the programme in Medicine, which is organised into 6 years of 60 ECTS credits each.

These degree programmes are official (and are therefore recognised for academic and professional purposes and have fees established, in Catalonia, by the Government of Catalonia) and lead to university masters programmes, also official and adapted to the EHEA.

The year 2008-2009 is the first in which the public state universities offer degree programmes. The University of Girona, after several pilot programmes to adapt to the EHEA, offers two new ones: in Medicine and in Advertising and Public Relations (which will temporarily coexist with the current 4-5 year degree programme).