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UPF achieves Campus of International Excellence rating

The "CEI UPF - Icària" project, which will receive four million euros in the 2010 call, anticipates the development of the Social and Human Sciences Research Park.
20.10.2010

 

The rector during the oral presentationAccording to an announcement this morning by the Ministry of Education, the " CEI UPF - Icària" project has been rated a Campus of International Excellence in the 2010 call.

The Campus of International Excellence programme is endowed with 75 million euros, in a call by the Ministry of Education which aims to make the Spanish universities of excellence among the best in Europe by 2015, and increase their international recognition.

The nine members of the international jury awarded Campus of International Excellence status to eight of the 22 finalist plans. As well as UPF, the other seven successful universities were Barcelona, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Seville, Zaragoza, the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Basque Country and Valencia.

The plans selected, which will be implemented in the period 2013-2016, will receive financing in the form of interest-free loans, which will be managed by their autonomous regional governments. The UPF plan will receive a total of four million euros.

The rector of Pompeu Fabra University, Josep Joan Moreso, declared his "satisfaction with the rating obtained and the recognition of the UPF's commitment to implementing a model of quality based on its foundation over the last twenty years. The rating obtained is also a strong boost for the acceleration of the UPF's plan for excellence, with the cooperation of other universities, such as Open University of Catalonia, and technology centres and postgraduate platforms".

The Icària International project was presented by Josep Joan Moreso (with the projection of a five-minute video and a short oral presentation), during a public exhibition of the finalist plans on 19 October at the CSIC in Madrid.

> Presentation of the project by the rector (document in PDF format, 92 KB)

The entire event was broadcast live on the website prepared by the Ministry of Education for this call.

The Icària International project

The "UPF - Icària International" project is based first and foremost on the University's accumulated experience over its twenty-year history. In this short period of time, UPF has achieved a successful combination of quality and teaching prestige with its unrelenting commitment to becoming a leading research university. The results show that this model is the right one, and teaching and research indicators place it among the best universities in Spain and in a strong position internationally (155th in the world, 2nd in Spain, in the Times Higher Education (THE) 2010 Ranking. Among the 300 and 400 best universities in the world and among the top 7 in Spain. Shanghair Ranking, ARWU 2010).

The project came about as the result of UPF's decision to take a decisive step towards fostering excellence based on a model focusing on an international that is policy open to the world, and the recruitment of leading researchers and lecturers, which enables an international range of postgraduate, master's degrees and doctorate courses to be reinforced, and high level research at the frontier of knowledge to be undertaken.

Main new features of the plan

Compared to the plan presented at the previous CEI 2009 call, in which UPF was rated "promising", there are two main new features. The first is the inclusion of new and important strategic aggregations: the Open University of Catalonia (UCO) - which contributes bimodality in its courses, the 4 Universities Alliance (UAM, UAB, UC3M and UPF), the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), the Barcelona Institute of Architecture (BIArch) and the Barcelona Beta centre, promoted by the Pasqual Maragall for Research Against Alzheimer's Disease.

The second new feature is that the 2010 plan emphasises the strength of UPF's three knowledge areas - biomedical sciences, social and human sciences, and communication sciences and technologies, fostering their interrelations and synergies. This is a focused university project but one which also promotes the interdisciplinarity that already exists in the University's scientific fields, in keeping with the international context.

60,000 metres available on the Ciutadella Campus

The UPF Research Park - Social and Human Sciences By means of its organisation in research parks - one for each knowledge area - UPF fosters knowledge transfer and innovation, which are key factors in the transformation of the economic model.

As well as the consolidated Barcelona Biomedical Research Park and the Barcelona Media Park, the Icària project also includes the development of in two phases by 2016, thereby completing this structure of three specialised science parks, to match the three University campuses.

In order to implement the plan, the University has 60,000 square metres of buildable land available in the 22@ district. This is area where the old military buildings were situated, and where a car park for the Ciutadella Campus currently stands.

This area will see the construction of new buildings which will be the home of various university research groups, internationally renowned mixed centres, businesses and innovation and transfer centres in order to make it a benchmark for social and human sciences in southern Europe.

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