On 18 June 1990, the Catalan Parliament passed Law 11/1990, greenlighting the creation of a new university in Catalonia to achieve two priority objectives, namely: to meet the growing demand for places at higher education institutions and to enhance the quality of university teaching in Catalonia.

The first public university founded since the restoration of the Generalitat de Catalunya, or Catalan government, the new institution was named Pompeu Fabra University, in honour of the ‘seny ordenador’ (roughly, bringer of common sense and order) of modern Catalan. UPF opened its doors on 8 October 1990, at the Balmes building (the former Fòrum Vergés), the university’s first teaching centre, for 316 first-year undergraduate students of Law and Economics and Business Sciences to attend their first day of classes. 

Since then, UPF has honoured and commemorated the figure and work of Pompeu Fabra in multiple unique ways. On 23 December 1998, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death, the UPF Theatre Workshop and Choir staged the production L’enginyer de la llengua (The Language Engineer) in the Ciutadella campus auditorium. The script, by Guillem-Jordi Graells, was based on texts by writers and poets who were contemporaries of Fabra, as well as on lexicographical material, excerpts from essays and translations by Fabra himself. 

For the 75^thanniversary of the Normes de Castelló spelling guidelines for the Valencian variation of Catalan and the publication of the Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, as well as the centenary of the 1^stInternational Conference on the Catalan Language, the 2006-2007 academic year was declared the Year of Pompeu Fabra. The aim was to delve deeper into Fabra’s scientific and philological work and its relationship with the times in which he lived. Amongst many other activities, the university organized the bibliographical exhibition ‘Tribute to Pompeu Fabra’. The tribute culminated in the inauguration of the Pompeu Fabra Space on the ground floor of the Library in UPF’s Dipòsit de les Aigües building. The space includes an extensive collection of nearly 140 volumes of works by and about Fabra, as well as a collection ofphotographs of him and various publications and material objects published at the University.

At UPF’s initiative, and with the support of the IEC, on 20 January 2010, the bookThe Architect of Modern Catalan: Pompeu Fabra (1868–1948). Selected writingswas presented. The book offers, for the first time, English translations of some of Fabra’s writings. Published by the prestigious Dutch publisher John Benjamins, the book consists of a selection of 59 of Fabra’s most important works and will facilitate the dissemination of his work at the international level. 

Finally, a relief featuring a full-body depiction of Fabra, by the Madrid-based sculptor Francisco López (1932-2017), presides over the lobby of UPF’s Poblenou campus auditorium. The piece is modelled on a photograph of Fabra under arrest on the Uruguay, shortly after the ‘Events of 6 October 1934’. 

In 2018, UPF joined the celebration of the 150^thanniversary of Fabra’s birth with several initiatives both of its own and jointly promoted with the IEC. This portal was one of the main achievements.