The project “A new lease of life for the Diari de Barcelona”, by the UPF Faculty of Communication, has received one of the Jaume Vicens Vives distinctions for teaching quality, awarded by the Catalan Government, in the collective awards category. The awards were delivered during the official inauguration of the 2021-2022 university academic year, held on 23 September, at the University of Girona.

Thanks to the agreement between UPF and Barcelona City Council, the Diari de Barcelona (DdB) was launched on 30 April 2020 as a daily, multi-platform medium conceived and produced by students. It has been awarded “for its transformative role in the teaching and practical application of information production with the aim of providing students with an instrument and a professional structure, involving them in the editorial decision-making process of the medium, which means total immersion in the dynamics of a professional communication medium”.

The Diari de Barcelona has been awarded “for its transformative role in the teaching and practical application of information production with the aim of providing students with an instrument and a professional structure”

Carles Pont, dean of the Faculty of Communication, and Roger Cassany, a professor at the Department of Communication and coordinator of the Diari de Barcelona in this new era, received the award from the president of the Catalan Government, Pere Aragonès, and the minister for Research and Universities, Gemma Geis, towards the close of the inaugural ceremony, which took place in the Aula Magna Modest Prats of the Girona institution.

The Jaume Vicens Vives awards, created in 1996, aim to recognize university teaching quality. The winners, who have been selected on the basis of the proposals made by the boards of trustees of public universities or by similar bodies at private universities in Catalonia, receive a prize endowed with 20,000 euros each, which must be used for innovation or teaching improvement projects.

A strategic project, linked to teaching and useful for students

Carles Pont, dean of the Faculty of Communication, states that “this recognition is an injection of encouragement because it is a strategic project, both for the Faculty and for the entire University, in which we have had great faith”. The dean explains that the recovery of the daily has involved students from the bachelor’s degree in Journalism, but also from those in Audiovisual Communication, Advertising and Public Relations, Translation and Interpretation and Applied Languages, and that “we would like to expand to students of other degrees throughout the University”.

The DdB, a digital newspaper published daily, 365 days a year, includes various means of communication with texts, photographs, video, audio and multimedia tools. It also has radio in podcast format, live broadcasting by streaming, and new digital journalistic formats. For all of the above, according to Carles Pont, “we are facing an important challenge, arising from a public university, which raises many uncertainties. With this award we can take another step towards improving teaching, knowledge transfer and research”.

For Roger Cassany, a professor with the Department of Communication and coordinator of the DdB, the Jaume Vicens Vives distinction “is recognition for the students and coordinators who make it possible to publish every day. It gives us more energy to continue along the path of experimentation within source journalism and a way of looking at the world. Roger Cassany highlights the pedagogical role of the medium: “When fourth-year students participate in the project, it is just before they take the leap into the job market. In many cases, when they have gone on to work in the media, what they have learned has been highly appreciated”.

For the coordinator of the DdB, it should be noted that this project is not only useful for the University, but especially for students: “The Diari de Barcelona is a tool for apprentice journalists, and this recognition reinforces this tool”, he stresses. But, above all, “it is a reflection of the ambition, energy and drive that the students have at the age of 20, which we coordinators are responsible for steering”.

Marcel Mauri, director of Journalism Studies at the Faculty of Communication, emphasizes that this is an innovative project on a European scale, where we do not find that many examples akin, although it is more common in the United States: “The DdB is a journalistic project of a medium “made at the University”, but it is not ‘the medium’ of UPF. Its goal is to reach the entire public, from a young and committed viewpoint”, he assures.

The professor at the Department of Communication underscores that this project is linked to teaching and to many subjects of the bachelor’s degree in Journalism (Integrated Workshop, Practicum…), as well as subjects of other degrees. Furthermore, “it is an open learning space that, in addition to UPF students, enjoys the external participation of other students in the country, via various forms of collaboration”.

Oriol Amat was present at the event, which included an inaugural lecture by Roser Salavert

The president of the Catalan Government, Pere Aragonès, accompanied by the minister for Research and Universities, Gemma Geis, presided over the inauguration of the 2021-2022 academic year of the Catalan university system. It was attended by the rectors of the Catalan universities and other authorities in the field of education, including Oriol Amat, UPF rector, and Josep Joan Moreso, president of AQU Catalunya and former rector of the University. The event, which coincided with the academic year in which Girona, Lleida and Rovira i Virgili universities are celebrating their 30^th anniversary, included an inaugural lecture, given online, by Dr. Roser Salavert, principal of New York’s third school district.

Apart from the project “A new lease of life for the Diari de Barcelona”, the other Jaume Vicens Vives distinctions went, at individual level, to Anna Pagès Santacana (Blanquerna-URL), Josep M. Terricabras Nogueras (UdG), and Maria Jesús Blanco Galindo (UOC), and at collective level, to the Observatory of Education of the Arts (UB) and to the project “Clinical simulation in nursing studies and transfer in the region” (UdG).

The Encarna Sanahuja Yll distinctions for excellence in the inclusion of the gender perspective in university teaching practice were awarded individually to M. de los Ángeles Calero Fernández, and collectively, to the project “Design, production and dissemination of resources for the introduction of the gender perspective in teaching in STEM” (UPC).