María de Maeztu Strategic Program on Equity, Diversity and Democracy

The Maria de Maeztu (MdM) Strategic Program on Equity, Diversity and Democracy (SPEDD) (CEX2025-001632-M) at the Political and Social Sciences Department (DPSS) of the University Pompeu Fabra is a 4-year strategic programme (2026-2030) aiming at facilitating the evolution of DPSS into a fully integrated social sciences hub, home to collaborative, transdisciplinary and socially engaged research.

Within an alarming global context of resurgence of anti-minority movements, attacks on diversity and equality policies, growing inequalities, and the rise of illiberal forces that exploit cultural anxieties and negatively target social diversity as a means of mobilizing support, discontent within societies is rising, democratic norms are facing erosion, while trust in institutions is rapidly declining. Against this background, academic institutions’ mandates of fostering independent and evidence-based research with an outward-looking perspective becomes ever more urgent.

SPEDD efforts revolve around cultivating concerted and sophisticated responses with the urgent development of robust, integrative policy countermeasures, grounded in rigorous, transdisciplinary social science research.

SPEDD’s goals are:

• Enhance visibility, research impact, and public engagement
• Advance research-based explanations of social and political challenges
• Foster transdisciplinary research synergies and institutional cohesion

The DPSS at UPF is the only Political and Social Sciences Department in Spain having received this prestigious accreditation, which will last until 2031.