Laia de Nadal, rector of Pompeu Fabra University, presented Horizon 2027, a document that sets out the priorities and actions of her term of office that she will carry out over the next four years.

The event took place at noon on 15 June in the auditorium of the Poblenou campus, which was filled with members of the various bodies of the university community (teaching and research staff, administration and service staff, and students) and with representatives of the different University centres, departments, institutes, services and units.

Laia de Nadal: “I would like to stress the fundamental role played by each and every one of us, each and every one of the bodies, to make UPF a better university”

The rector was accompanied by the members of her governing team, seated in a corner of the stage. All the vice-rectors were present: Pablo Pareja, vice-rector for Teaching and Research Staff; Sergi Torner, vice-rector for Academic Planning and Students; Cristina Pujades, vice-rector for Research; Vanessa Daza, vice-rector for Knowledge Transfer; Helena Ramalhinho, vice-rector for Internationalization; Raquel Bouso, vice-rector for Culture and Communication, and Eva Pujadas, vice-rector for Social Commitment and Sustainability.

Other members of the governing team were also present: José García Montalvo, commissioner for Scientific Policy; Marcel Mauri, commissioner for Linguistic Policy; Josep Lluís Martí, commissioner for the Planetary Wellbeing Project, and Eulàlia Solé, head of the Rector’s Office.

For Laia de Nadal, “the priorities and actions we present are the result of analysis and reflection, of the exchange of ideas with many people” (...) “I would like to stress the fundamental role played by each and every one of us, each and every one of the bodies, to make UPF a better university”. And she noted that “each and every one of the priorities and actions set out in this plan seeks to reach out to all bodies and, at the same time, highlight the thread that unites them and the need to work in collaboration”.

At the beginning of the event, the rector thanked the entire community for how it acted and for its understanding during the computer-related incident suffered by UPF this week, and especially the University services for their endeavour to return to normality as quickly as possible.

Before going into explain the various points of the UPF Horizon 2027 document, she reviewed the five main aspirations or cornerstones of the electoral programme (2023-2027) with which she and her team presented themselves during the campaign: Strategy and leadership, Singularity and people, Knowledge, Glocal, and Vision and social outreach. “Each and every one of these areas and bodies are, of course, central to the activity of the University and, in reality, it is the sum of these groups that gives us our reason for being”, Laia de Nadal underscored.

The presentation was given in the auditorium of the Poblenou campus

Presentation of the Horitzó 2027 document

The rector explained that to make its monitoring and consultation easier, the plan of priorities and actions has been organized around different areas of action, highlighting, respectively, the strategic challenges, the different actions to be carried out and their time frame, and the main actors and agents involved.

Presentation of the Horizon 2027 (pdf, in catalan)

Excerpts from the thirteen strategic pillars into which the document is divided:

I. PEOPLE AND COMMUNITY

“Our main goal for the next four years is to move towards a PDI structure that is autonomous and sensitive to immediate teaching needs, is more egalitarian and rejuvenated, and with muscle and a degree of commitment that has an impact on teaching, research, transfer and harnessing competitive funds”

“We want to consolidate a student body that, beyond the academic training activities, feels included, listened to and committed throughout life, far beyond its formative stage”

“Regarding the PAS, our goal is to rejuvenate the workforce, enhance its technification and rethink the distribution of personnel in order to align it in so far as possible with the aspirations of UPF in the medium and long term”

II. ACADEMIC PLANNING

“We need a strategic, coherent and flexible vision of the courses on offer, encouraging teaching staff to research and apply innovative teaching that responds to the demands of the times of change we are living”

“Our main goal is to define a strategy of qualifications and teaching innovation that consolidates our uniqueness, our competitiveness and our good reception”

III. RESEARCH AND SCIENCE POLICY

“It is essential to understand that research is transversal throughout the entire University and, therefore, it needs to be present at all levels, and to have a very good professional team with a vocation of support”

“We aim to consolidate research as a key pillar of the University through harnessing funds, communicating research and an open, quality science model”

IV. KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

“We wish to consolidate UPF as an intensive centre in the transfer of all its areas of knowledge, both through the impact on the PDI so that it is open to enterprise and society, and through the impact on enterprise and institutions so that they seek to collaborate with the University. Counting, in this pursuit, on the maximum involvement and strategic support of the Board of Trustees”

V.  INTERNATIONALIZATION

“The focus of internationalization in several key areas —such as the student body, research, teaching or transfer— and the improvement in quality, coordination and communication are some of the areas where it is appropriate to act to consolidate the internationalization strategy”

VI. CULTURE

“We must work with culture against brutality, which is reaching unthinkable spaces. And, more generally, we must work so that culture is consolidated as what it is and must be: a core area of our University.

“We must promote cultural programming, creation and dissemination, give visibility to material heritage and support to the digital dimension of culture, and establish coordination mechanisms with the fields of training and research”

VII.  SOCIAL COMMITMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY

“A good university must also be committed to society and sustainability. UPF must also be what we call a socially responsible territory”

“The main goal we set ourselves for the next four years is to integrate the units linked to social commitment and sustainability into a single office and to develop or update the key strategic plans of the units linked to the office”

VIII. LANGUAGE POLICY

“This area has two main objectives: to deepen in the analysis and planning of the use of Catalan and, at the same time, to increase and deploy specific measures to promote the use of the Catalan language in teaching, transfer and the communication of research in a multilingual environment”

IX. PLANETARY WELLBEING

“The strategic challenges that we want to implement in this area revolve around two general goals: consolidating knowledge actions around the Planetary Wellbeing initiative (research, teaching and transfer) and, in parallel, consolidating the organizational units that make this project possible and drive it forward”

X.  UPF GROUP

“It is clear that the centres have different objectives and orientations. Therefore, the fact that their programming and offer is also diverse must be respected"

“A balance that is sustainable over time must be found between: their desire to grow, the challenges of their feasibility, and their participation in sustaining the global project that is UPF, of whose prestige they undoubtedly benefit. In the same way that UPF receives the positive effects of their magnificent work”

XI. MANAGEMENT

“At the same time, the University as a whole is beginning a generational renewal, through rejuvenation, which must allow introducing cultural and management changes with the incorporation of new professional profiles”

“The main objective that we have defined for the management team involves enhancing efficient management, institutional tranquillity and upholding UPF’s uniqueness”

XII. RECTOR’S OFFICE

“The main objective in this area is to ensure a strategic alignment and good coordination of the series of projects and actions I have explained so far, with special emphasis on improving internal and external communication and quality and innovation as a work horizon”

XIII. SECRETARY GENERAL

“On the one hand, we want to ensure the continuity and progressive improvement of the ordinary tasks that fall with the Secretary General with regard to their rationalization and systematization and the optimization of time and resources, and, on the other hand, to deal with the extraordinary challenges posed by the current context”

“I would like specifically to thank the courage of all (PDI, PAS, PSR) who work in the fragile cultural and scientific ecosystem, and urge you all to reflect on how to improve and help it”

The rector ended her speech by thanking all the bodies of the University, calling for participation and dialogue: “I would like specifically to thank the courage of all (PDI, PAS, PSR) who work in the fragile cultural and scientific ecosystem, and urge you all to reflect on how to improve and help it”. And she added: “With your individual and team effort, I am convinced that we will not only make UPF a better university, but we will also contribute (perhaps modestly but no less relevantly) to building a better society and a better world for the generations to come”.

Caterina Garcia, a full professor of International Relations with the Department of Law and current ombudsperson of the University, steered the last part with several questions posed by the audience, addressing the rector.

Photo album of the event