UPF Fact Sheet
LAW
Teaching
Traditionally, UPF’s undergraduate programme in Law has had one of the highest admission marks in the Spanish university system (10.09 out of 14) and registered excellent rates of academic success (94.19%). It has also attached particular importance to the international dimension of the curriculum: more than 10% of the lectures and seminars are conducted in English. In the 2018-2019 academic year, the Faculty of Law will receive students from the one-year Erasmus Mundus European Master in Law and Economics (EMLE) (see Section 3 on Internationalization below). Furthermore, in the 2019-2020 academic year, UPF will also be launching the innovative new Double Bachelor’s Degree in Law in partnership with King’s College (see Section 3 on Internationalization below).
Key figures —— —— —— ——
77% of official master’s students are international (2018-2019) 60% of doctoral students are international (2018-2019) 22% of UPF graduates have studied abroad (2017-2018) Internship agreements with nearly 290 companies, such as Baker McKenzie, PwC, Reckitt Benckiser, Adam Foods and ILANUD
Research
The Department of Law has decades of experience in applied research in the social sciences, as well as in researcher and postgraduate training. It is home to around 150 researchers and 12 research groups that aspire to provide legal practitioners with tools to improve institutions and, thus, citizen welfare. The research potential of these groups has been recognized through the funding obtained in competitive research calls and can be seen in their extensive scientific output. The Department promotes highly innovative master’s programmes with a markedly international orientation. It also offers a PhD programme that was awarded the Pathway to Excellence label by the Spanish Ministry of Education in 2011 and that, in the last five years, has accumulated more than 70 PhD theses.
Key figures — — — — — — — — — —
Horizon 2020:[1] €340,000 / 2 projects — 2 Marie Curie actions European Commission (DG Justice and Consumers):[2] 47,000 € / 2 projects 7th Framework Programme (FP7):[3] 370,000 € / 2 projects, including: — 1 Marie Curie Action Spanish R&D and Innovation Plan:[4] €864,000 / 23 projects Recercaixa:[5] €151,000 / 2 projects ICREA research professors:[6] 3 ICREA Academia prizes:[7] 1 International teaching staff:[8] 9% Theses defended in English: 12% (2017-2018) 5 industrial PhD projects funded by the catalan government (20132018)
Data refer to the 2014-2018 period only. They include individual and consortia projects. [2] Data refer to the 2014-2017 period only. [3] Data refer to the 2007-2013 period only. They include individual and consortia projects. [4] Data refer to the 2014-2017 period only. [5] Data refer to the 2014-2015 period. [6] The Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) offers permanent tenured positions at Catalan host institutions to top researchers from around the world. [7] Data refer to the 2009-2013 period. [8] Data as of January 2017. [1]
Research areas —— Civil Law, with multiple interests in innovative fields such as family law, torts, contracts and property law, or the economic analysis of law. —— Commercial Law, with multiple interests in innovative fields such as company law, competition law, intellectual property and bankruptcy law. —— Philosophy of Law, focussed on an analytical perspective. —— Labour Law, with a wide range of interests that are reflected in the bachelor’s degree in Labour Relations. —— Constitutional Law, including important bridges to Latin and North America, as well as experts in comparative constitutional justice. —— Criminal Law, consisting of a solid and compact group closely linked to important research centres in Germany. —— Criminology, focused on studying sentencing, prison systems and gender analysis of criminal law. —— Financial and Tax Law, versed in public health funding systems as well as matters of local taxation. —— History of Law & Institutions, with interests ranging from representation and participation in politics in the pre-liberal world to constitutionalism, dictatorship and transitional justice. —— International Public Law, with experts in various fields such as international protection of human rights. —— International Private Law, with experts in the promotion of a more egalitarian family law (in developed Muslim countries). —— Administrative Law, which participated in the important European project ‘Citizenship in the European Union’.
International agreements
The Faculty of Law is committed to training globally competent professionals with a passion for research. In order to create mobility opportunities for its bachelor students, it has signed international exchange agreements with 58 partner universities in 25 countries. Some of the UPF’s main partners in the field of law include the following universities: —— Oxford, Kings’ College London, Leicester and Newcastle universities (UK) —— Freiburg, Bonn, Mannheim and Regensburg universities and the European Business School (Germany) —— KU Leuven and Antwerp universities (Belgium); Maastricht University (the Netherlands) —— Bologna and Bocconi universities (Italy) —— University College Dublin (Ireland) —— Paris 12, Toulouse I and Orleans universities (France) —— East China University of Political Science and Law and University of Hong Kong (China) —— Singapore Management University (Singapore) —— University of Geneva (Switzerland) —— Cornell University, UCLA, University of Connecticut and University of Illinois (USA) The Faculty of Law is involved in several exciting international initiatives at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. First, the Double Bachelor’s Degree in Law with King’s College (to be launched in the 2019-2020 academic year) is an innovative, cross-disciplinary, international proposal that will allow students to earn two degrees in a period of four years (the first two years are attended at King’s College and the last two at UPF). Second, the two-year Erasmus Mundus joint master’s degree in Sports Ethics and Integrity (MAiSI) is a multidisciplinary programme that brings together highlevel scholars from a consortium of higher education institutions: Swansea University (UK), Charles University (Czech Republic), KU Leuven (Belgium), Gutenberg University (Germany), the University of Peloponnese (Greece) and UPF. Third, the Erasmus Mundus European Master in Law and Economics (EMLE) comprises nine teaching centres within the EU (Aix-Marseille, Barcelona, Bologna, Ghent, Hamburg, Rome, Rotterdam, Vienna and Warsaw) and two worldwide (Haifa and Mumbai). Finally, the Comparative, International and European Law (CIEL) graduate exchange programme encourages mobility among students on the master’s degree in European and Global Law through stays at CIEL member institutions: University of Mannheim (Germany), University of Antwerp (Belgium), University College Dublin (Ireland), Maastricht University (the Netherlands), University of Toulouse I - Capitol (France), Zagreb University (Croatia) and UPF. Students who successfully complete the CIEL programme are awarded the certificate of European Master in Comparative International and European Law (CIEL), in addition to their master’s degree.
UPF is also a founding member of “Sui Iuris”, the Association of IberoAmerican Law Schools and Faculties. This association aims to provide a forum for open and independent dialogue on issues related to the teaching of law and legal practice, encourage continuous improvement of law faculties and schools throughout Ibero-America, and promote staff and student exchanges between member universities. It consists of 20 IberoAmerican universities, including: the Autonomous University of Madrid, Carlos III University, and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain); Buenos Aires, San Andrés and Torcuato di Tella universities (Argentina); Diego Portales, Valparaíso and Pontificia de Valparaíso universities (Chile); and Fundaçao Getulio Vargas and Católica do Rio de Janeiro universities (Brazil), among others. Finally, the European Commission awarded a Jean Monnet ad personam Chair to professor Alejandro Saiz to carry out the “Linking European Judges: Between the Charter and the Convention” project, which analyses the application by national judges of both the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights. Professor Saiz had been awarded another Jean Monnet Chair in 2008 to study European Integration, in particular how that process challenged the traditional definition and categories of constitutional law.
UPF appears on some of the most influential global rankings:
Global rankings and results by subject
—— 1st Spanish university, 135th worldwide and 58th in Europe (Times Higher Education ranking, 2019) —— 11th university worldwide among universities aged 50 and under (Times Higher Education Young Universities Ranking, 2018) —— 2nd university in Spain and among the top 250 universities in the world (Shanghai ranking, 2018) The University also ranks high in law and social sciences: —— Among the top 150 in the world in law (QS, 2019) —— 97st in the world in social sciences (QS, 2019)
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The Department offers bachelor’s degrees in Law, Labour Relations, and Criminology and Public Prevention Policy.
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The double bachelor’s degree in Law and Business Management and Administration or Economics, offered jointly with the Faculty of Economics and Business, allows students to earn a bachelor’s degree in Law and another in either Business Management and Administration or Economics in a period of five years and one term. The programme recruits top students and has one of the highest admission marks in the university system (11.9 out of 14). It also has excellent rates of academic performance (95.89%). Additionally, 9% of the theory class hours are conducted in English.
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The double bachelor’s degree in Criminology and Public Prevention Policy and Law allows students to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Law and another in Criminology and Public Prevention Policy in a period of five years and one term. The admission mark is 11.336 out of 14. It also has excellent rates of academic success (99.34%).
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The double bachelor’s degree in Law, jointly taught by King’s College London and UPF, provides training that enables students to understand the structure and functions of two very different legal systems and their rules (English common law and Spanish law) as well as to assimilate basic normative content, to apply techniques for arguing a case and for interpreting rules of law. The first two years are taken in London and the last two in Barcelona.
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The two-year Erasmus Mundus joint master’s degree in Sports Ethics and Integrity (MAiSI) is an innovative multidisciplinary programme that equips students for high-level careers in sports administration and governance, concentrating on the development of stronger ethical sports cultures and tools for sports integrity and compliance.
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The one-year master’s degree in European and Global Law, launched in the 2016-2017 academic year and taught entirely in English, offers highly competitive academic training in the basic issues of global law, with particular emphasis on European law. It is intended for law graduates and legal professionals from anywhere in the world interested in becoming lawyers with a global perspective and pursuing their careers in rapidly changing legal environments.
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The advanced master’s degree in Legal Sciences is an academic master’s programme designed to provide an introduction to research and in-depth professional training in each of the main legal disciplines. It is also a general master’s programme in law, featuring cross-disciplinary content from all major legal disciplines approached from a highly international comparative perspective.
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The master’s degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice System is an interuniversity programme offered jointly by UPF, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the University of Girona (UdG) and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in which students acquire the specific methodological knowledge they need to conduct empirical research in the field of criminology.
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PhD programme in Law.
April 2019
www.upf.edu/web/dret