Johns Hopkins University, one of the most important universities in the United States, and UPF, with which it has traditionally worked in the field of public policy, have opened the Johns Hopkins University - Pompeu Fabra University Public Policy Center, located in UPF's new research building on the Ciutadella campus.

The centre was founded with the goal of improving the social welfare and quality of life of people on both sides of the Atlantic. It will establish research and postgraduate teaching programmes dealing with key issues for the twenty-first century, such as climate change, financial, economic, social and political crises, migration and European economic, financial and political integration.

The centre is committed to cutting-edge, multidisciplinary and applied research which will be based on the sharing of the scientific knowledge arising from the synergies created at the centre, and to providing support for the institutions and organizations responsible for making decisions on social welfare. In fact, the presence of multidisciplinary and collaborative research teams is intended to be one of the centre's distinctive features, and it also aims to become a meeting point for researchers from all over the world interested in these great global challenges.

The creation of the centre is the result of an active collaboration between the two universities over the years, especially in the field of public policy, and its establishment also aims to contribute to the recognition of Barcelona as international centre of scientific knowledge with particular sensitivity to welfare and quality of life.

The opening ceremony was attended by a delegation from JHU headed by Dr Michael Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr Ellen MacKenzie, Director of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the JH Bloomberg School of Public Health; Dr P. G. Forest, director of the JH Institute for Health and Social Policy at the JH Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr Don Steinwachs, professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the JH Bloomberg School of Public Health and Dr Erica Schoenberger, professor at the JH Whiting School of Engineering. Attending on behalf of UPF were the rector, Jaume Casals, the vice-rector for International Relations, Dr Josep Ferrer, and the lecturer in Health and Public at the JHU and Emeritus Professor of Political and Social Sciences at UPF, Dr Vicenç Navarro.

Given the impact that the new centre may have on the city, the delegation is scheduled to visit the mayor Xavier Trias and his team during their stay in Barcelona.

Image gallery of the event

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