Pompeu Fabra University is a public university. One of its main missions – in addition to promoting quality teaching and top-level research – is for the knowledge it generates to directly benefit society in order to boost our country’s competitiveness and enhance the population’s wellbeing.

To this end, through the creation of the brand new Office of the Vice-rector for Knowledge Transfer, the university is promoting a specific plan of measures to strengthen knowledge transfer to society. The measures are grouped into four main areas: valorizing research transfer; fostering entrepreneurship; connecting private- and public-sector players with the university; and promoting knowledge dissemination.

Moving beyond the university’s walls is a moral obligation. To this end, UPF is promoting a specific plan of measures to strengthen knowledge transfer to society

Although our efforts and results in this field in recent years make for an optimistic start, the university understands that there is still room for improvement. It thus aims to provide the necessary tools to make knowledge transfer a key strategic line in the coming years. And now is a particularly good time to do it: public agencies at all levels and various organizations and foundations are publishing new calls for proposals to narrow the gap between science and society.

Moving beyond the university’s walls is a moral obligation. We have to be able to identify societal problems and needs in order to propose the best solutions at any given time. We likewise need to promote the university as a porous, accessible environment, open to society, with the aim of encouraging knowledge sharing that is more than a one-way outwards-flowing process, that fosters a multidirectional dynamic between UPF and external stakeholders to enable the exchange of ideas, knowledge and expertise. Only then can we fulfil our mission of generating social and economic benefits for the community as a whole.