In view of the information published in the newspapers Ara and ElDiario.es on 18 April 2023, concerning Vicenç Navarro, former full professor of the Department of Political and Social Sciences, UPF wishes to state the following:

1. That the management team has opened an ex officio review, at the request of the rector and as provided for in the Protocol for dealing with psychological violence in the workplace, to clarify the scope of the information. The purpose of the review is to examine the facts and, where appropriate, to attend to the persons affected.

2. That Vicenç Navarro has no employment or academic ties with UPF since 2018 and, since 2021, neither with the UPF-BSM, a centre attached to the University. During his time at UPF-BSM, in 2021, a formal complaint was received from a person alleging harassment at work by Professor Navarro, and the centre opened a file against him. On 31 May 2021 Vicenç Navarro presented his retirement after learning that the centre had decided to discontinue his employment relationship as a result of the investigation opened by the centre.

3. That UPF has been working since March, with the start of Laia de Nadal’s term of office as rector, on a process of reviewing the mechanisms and procedures it has in place for channelling and resolving cases that may affect people’s welfare, with the aim of identifying possible areas for improvement. To carry out this review, on 30 March the University’s management team approved the creation of an internal working group that will receive external advice from experts in the field. Some of the improvements being assessed are as follows:

• Review the current system for investigating information and disciplinary cases.
• Launch an information campaign for prevention and training on harassment and abuse of power, promoting the dissemination of and access to the various channels available for filing complaints and denunciations.
• External counselling for some part of the complaints procedure, in order to provide the persons concerned with independent legal and psychological support, complementary to the existing internal support.

4. That the working group will present the conclusions of its report by the end of May, and the rector will submit them to the Governing Council so that it can assess and implement the measures proposed.

5. That the rector will raise the issue with the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP) in order to address the problem of harassment in universities in a joint and coordinated manner.

The management team would like to reiterate that UPF has a zero tolerance policy towards any form of abuse or harassment of any kind that occurs within the institution, and would like to remind the entire UPF university community that the corresponding channels are available to report any incident in this regard.