·Profiles·
·In depth·
·Community·
Natural language follows patterns or rules
Pompeu Fabra and the proliferation of international rankings
The new faces of the 25th anniversary
08-09
10-11
12-13
·On campus·
Educational innovation: a collective challenge Tell me, and I will forget; show me, and I will remember; involve me, and I will understand. 04-07
The Pompeu Fabra University magazine / No. 10 / October 2015
I choose UPF
A quality, international, public university
Bachelor's degree, double degree, master's degree and doctoral programmes in: >> Communication >> Economic and Business Science >> Education >> Health and Life Sciences >> Humanities and History
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>> Information and Communication Technologies >> Law >> Political and Social Sciences >> Translation and Language Sciences
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October 2015
·Introduction·
jaume casals
Q
:
upf.edu 03
Rector of UPF
A TEACHING MODEL BASED ON INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION
uality instruction and a commitment to educational innovation are two of the hallmarks of UPF. After all, this university was founded 25 years ago with the aim of providing only the highest-quality education to the best students in Catalonia in certain academic and professional fields. The years and data have shown that there was a place for such a new and different university, one whose scores today on various key measures of teaching quality more than double the university system average.
Still, the context around us has changed: the close, local, familiar environment in which universities have traditionally operated has swelled to a constantly evolving global scale. Likewise, the profile of the students – now digital natives – entering the classrooms is different, as is the knowledge they expect to obtain from a university institution. In light of the often uncertain job market, the university must offer multidisciplinary programmes and skills, tools that will allow students to easily adapt to jobs that often times do not even yet exist. In the face of these emerging challeng-
es, our strategy hinges on shifting from a university model that restricts students to a closed catalogue of programmes to a much more flexible one, in which the university supports and guides students throughout their academic life.
This academic year, we have undertaken several projects in this regard. In addition to the interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree, double degree, and simultaneous study programmes that we have already successfully launched, we have taken another step forward with the Open Degree programme. This programme, which has been very well received (2.7 applicants per place and a cut-off mark of around 11.5), allows students, under the guidance of a tutor, to try out various subjects offered at UPF before choosing a specific bachelor’s degree to pursue. Educational innovation also means granting an important role to the use of new technologies in teaching. The launch of the VEU project, which incorporates new technologies into learning spaces through the production of videos, applications, and MOOCs, is a good example. In short, these are bold and innovative projects that set us apart and help us grow as a university.
toni batllori
Written, produced and edited by the Institutional Communication and Promotion Unit (Rector’s Office). Plaça de la Mercè, 10-12. 08002 Barcelona. Tel.: 93 542 20 00. http://www.upf.edu. E-mail: gabinet.rectorat@upf.edu Cover art by Mikel Jaso. LD B-44938-2010. ISSN 2014-0630
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·On campus·
October 2015
Educational innovation: a collective challenge Classrooms need to become spaces for integrating learning, that allow students to put what theay have learned into practice and encourage discussion and reflection ‘Tell me, and I will forget; show me, and I will remember; involve me, and I will understand.’ Humberto Llavador, a lecturer in the Department of Economics and Business, often refers to this quote by Confucius to describe where education is headed today. ‘We have to bear in mind that today’s students can go online and find a video explaining anything we might teach in a traditional class, with the added
advantage that it has been carefully edited and allows them to fast-forward and rewind at will’, he explained. The world is changing, and the university education model is no exception. ‘The students in our classrooms are digital natives, unlike the faculty, who, for the most part, are digital immigrants’, said Mireia Trenchs, vice-rector for Teaching and Academic Planning. Moreover, ‘they are used
to quickly updating their knowledge; they learn to use new apps and software easily and on their own’, she added. Consequently, not only must lecturers engage in an ongoing refresher process, the institution needs to be continuously renewing itself too. For Manel Jiménez, a lecturer in the Department of Communication and the person responsible for incorporating new technologies into teach-
October 2015
·On campus·
upf.edu 05 ing this goal: quality education, available to all, with no predefined pace of learning. According to the vice-rector, ‘Young people today come to university with new consciences. Our responsibility is to offer them a place to learn, so they can help build a more just society.’ The service-learning methodol-
Tell me and I will forget; show me and I will remember; involve me and I will understand
UPF students working in group at the Library/CRAI on the Poblenou campus. Frederic Camallonga
ing at the University, today’s students are ‘multitaskers, used to operating through second screens, engagement mechanisms, and storytelling, under the umbrella of social learning’. This new type of student ‘no longer sees barriers between disciplines, incorporated into subjects as they have been understood to date, but rather operates in an interdisciplinary, project-based learning model’, Trenchs said. Therefore ‘this model, which is increasingly common in primary and secondary school, must be embraced in order to offer an education that truly prepares young people to tackle the complexity of the contemporary world’, she stressed. In this scenario, what role should teachers play in the classroom? For Jiménez, the answer is clear: ‘They need to be the authorized voice that organizes and transmits knowledge; they need to be the tutor and mentor of the student’s learning dynamics.’
This means changing the direction of current educational schemes. ‘Classrooms need to become spaces for integrating learning, that allow students to put what they have learned into practice and encourage discussion and reflection; in contrast, content should be acquired outside the classroom, in the hours students spend working out of class’, he explained. But the challenges do not end there. In Trenchs’s view, there is currently ‘a growing need to provide individualized learning’. In this regard, UPF is taking decisive steps to offer groundbreaking models that can be tailored to students’ specific needs. For instance, the new UPF Open Degree offers a means of admission to the university that does not predetermine the degree to be pursued, but rather opens the door to a variety of possibilities. The promotion of massive open online courses (MOOCs) is likewise geared towards this achiev-
ogies advocated in recent years, which UPF is beginning to encourage, are a clear example. Finally, educational changes must be made to turn university classrooms into truly internationalized, multilingual, and multicultural spaces, home to both foreign students and locals with roots in other cultures. ‘The content of the curriculum should be internationalized, as should the skills our students should ultimately acquire’, underscored Trenchs. In short, today’s students are highly internationalized digital natives and multitaskers with an interdisciplinary outlook in search of a customized education and outlets for their social commitment to their community. This blend of characteristics is one of the most exciting, and complex, challenges for the adaptation of higher education in quite some time.
Platform for educational innovation The Vídeos d’Ensenyament Universitaris (University Education Videos, VEU) project promoted by the previous vice-rector of Teaching and Academic Planning, Josep-Eladi Baños, is one way in which the university is striving to meet the global challenge of educational innovation. According to Baños, ‘We have an obligation, as teachers, to learn about the new ways of teaching and to use the methods that best help students achieve their learning objectives.’ It is an inclusive, productive, and educational initiative that aims to incorporate new technologies in
06 upf.edu learning spaces, ranging from supplementary videos, to applets, blended-learning dynamics (which combine face-to-face and online learning), and MOOCs. The proposal is innovative because it leverages the skills of an existing cross-disciplinary team. According to Jiménez, one of the heads of the VEU project, ‘Unlike other universities, UPF has chosen a system based on support and co-production with faculty.’ The team consists of lecturers who are part of the educational improvement experience; members of the Centre for Teaching Quality and Innovation (CQUID), who help with educational design and teacher training tasks; the Computing Service, which enables a quantum leap in the production quality of audiovisual and technical materials; and the university’s
As teachers, we have to use the methods that best help our students achieve their goals library, which, in addition to serving as an information resource management hub, contributes via La Factoria, which acts as the technical secretary for the projects. The Faculty of Translation and Interpretation also provides assistance in the form of the copyediting and translation of texts. The project also includes a variety of scheduled training activities intended to offer guidance and enable lecturers to integrate technological resources into their classrooms fairly autonomously, as well as to offer advice on both technical and educational aspects of the implementation of future projects. Since its creation, two years ago, the VEU project has provided support for the production of 14 MOOCs and has facilitated 11 projects for the inclusion of new technologies in the educational sphere.
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) The year 2012 was the year that MOOCs took off. Some experts warned
·On campus·
Incorporation of educational innovation in UPF subjects NEWTON’S METHOD Anna Carreras, who teaches the first-year subject ‘Calculus and Numerical Methods’, offered in engineering programmes at the Polytechnic School, noticed that her students needed more support to grasp Newton’s method and that conventional mathematics textbooks often failed to make it understandable. As a result, she began to create a series of audiovisual materials that would make it possible to reproduce a visual explanation of the method much more efficiently and professionally than could be done in a traditional theory class. She also added brief questionnaires to the end of each chapter for students to assess their progress. Using this format allowed students to check the content as often as they needed and to advance at their own pace, resulting in overall improvements in the final outcomes. BLENDED LEARNING Humberto Llavador, from the Department of Economics and Business, is leading a project that combines the concepts of flipped classrooms and scheduled classes. The theory, or scheduled, portion of the subject is offered online and can be fully adapted to each student’s pace. Feedback is provided by allowing them to test their knowledge. The practical, or flipped, portion of the subject is carried out in person in a seminarstyle class. It allows students to work on, apply and discuss the key concepts they acquired online in advance. Assessment is based on the assimilation of the content that allows students to participate in the seminar. Participating in the practical portion thus becomes a right that students must earn.
October 2015
that they would be a tsunami for universities, which they considered flatfooted when it comes to reacting to sudden changes. However, UPF reacted quickly, in part thanks to the creation of the VEU project. As Jiménez explained, ‘It is one of the universities to work with most platforms – Miríada X, Coursera, Open edX, P2PU, UCATx – an experience that has afforded it expertise and comparative criteria when it comes to designing MOOCs.’ UPF has emerged as the most competitive institution, in relative terms, with regard to the grant programme run by the Catalan Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR), having secured funding to create eight courses. It was also the first university in Spain to join the FutureLearn platform, an initiative of the Open University, with support from the British Library and the BBC, as well as one of the first non-English-speaking institutions to do so in Europe. Through Miquel Oliver, a lecturer in the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC), it is also contributing to research on the MOOC phenomenon, thanks to the Telefónica-UPF Chair on Social Innovation in Education. Oliver is also a member of the group working on the development of the Catalan platform UCATx. But why is it so important to join the wave? According to Davinia Hernández, a lecturer in the DTIC and an expert on the use of ICT in education, it is important because ‘this model not only significantly expands the educational offer and the available open education resources, but is also a new tool for scientific dissemination and promotion and the internationalization of the university and its faculty’. UPF wants to make participating in the movement a priority and to do it competitively in a global context, ‘with a view to achieving milestones with regard to optimizing the quality of learning, methodological innovation, and the confluence of teaching, research, and knowledge transfer’, Jiménez explained.
·On campus·
October 2015
upf.edu 07
UPF signature MOOCs The 3rd Golden Age of Television ‘To make a good one, you need to be passionate about it.’ That was the categorical response of Carlos Scolari, a lecturer in the Department of Communication, when asked about the essential ingredients to create a MOOC. ‘As with a feature film or an interactive project, there is a lot of preproduction. But you also have to design the learning strategy, the content, the pacing and sequence of activities, and the assessments.’ He is currently working on the second edition of the course, which is being offered via the Miríada X platform, and which he jointly created with the writer Jorge Carrion. The course has been quite successful, attracting a total of more than 7,500 students between the two editions. The subject matter is key to success. ‘We wanted to find something that could interest people with different backgrounds, profiles, and passions’, Scolari explained. ‘The new generation of television series is a global phenomenon, and we need to close the gap between universities and these new narrative forms’, he added. A pioneer in the sphere of MOOCs, he is already thinking about how to continue innovating in the field. ‘We need to begin to experiment with other formats, for example, very short online courses or – why not? – the educational possibilities of the language and aesthetic of YouTubers’.
Jorge Carrion and Carlos Scolari, creators of the MOOC ‘The 3rd Golden Age of Television’. upf
Image of the MOOC ‘Talk to Me with Your Hands, Listen to Me with Your Eyes. upf
Talk to Me with Your Hands, Listen to Me with Your Eyes This introductory MOOC to Catalan Sign Language is currently under production and is slated to be launched in late 2015, on the FutureLearn platform. Its promoters, Josep Quer and Cristina Gelpí, lecturers in the Department of Translation and Language Sciences, are motivated ‘by a component of social responsibility, as the course is intended to help promote the natural language of the deaf’, they explained. According to Gelpí, ‘We need to encourage strategies that contribute to
The European Discovery of China This MOOC, the first UPF has offered through the FutureLearn platform, has already drawn more than 5,000 students. Dolors Folch, a professor emeritus in the Department of Humanities, created the course, which looks at the history of China and Europe in a global context in order to understand the origins and persistence of certain stereotypes about the Asian country in Europe. Folch stressed how vital it is ‘to have a clear understanding of how the chosen
the complete integration of deaf individuals as fully entitled citizens.’ When designing the course, Quer and Gelpí were fully aware that they could not simply repackage conventional material. ‘We needed to design a new supervised learning path, with materials and activities to help students achieve certain predefined skills’, Quer explained. Looking back on their experience to date, they would highlight, in addition to the infrastructure facilities the university has offered them, the interdisciplinary cooperation involved, which has let them ‘establish synergies with other fields and experience first-hand how the exchange of viewpoints enriches all members of a project’, Gelpí said.
platform for the MOOC works, as it will require adaptations, by both the university and the teacher’. ‘MOOCs attract people from all over the world, which is one of their greatest strengths, as it really opens up the number of topics covered’, Folch explained. In this regard, she said, MOOCs should ‘serve as a lever to promote quality online education that opens the doors to university education for a large number of students’. Not only do they offer benefits to students, she added, they are also ‘a great tool for teachers, affording them access to a hitherto unimaginable number of quality resources’.
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·Profiles·
October 2015
Louise McNally
PROFESSOR OF LINGUISTICS AND VICE-RECTOR FOR TEACHING STAFF AT UPF
‘Language is only a tool, like a pencil. We can use a pencil to do a lot of things other than write’
LOUISE MCNALLY is a professor of
linguistics in the Department of Translation and Language Sciences at UPF and a member of the Formal Linguistics Research Group (GLIF). She coordinated the local organization of the 27th edition of the European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI), held at the university in August. She received the ICREA Academia award (for excellence in research) in 2008 and 2013. She is vice-rector for teaching staff at UPF.
by the Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI), with the support of other international associations dedicated to logic and computing. It promotes synergies between logic, linguistics, computer science, philosophy of language, and cognitive sciences in order to shed light on the nature of human language and improve language technologies. This year, some 380 people from 40 countries took part in 48 courses and workshops held over the two weeks that the school was in session.
orally or signed. They evolve organically among all speakers, and, as a result, we don’t usually think about them: descriptive grammars simply offer an abstract summary of the common traits found in people’s coordinated language behaviour. In contrast, a formal language is consciously created and explicitly defined with basic symbols and rules for combining them. Examples of formal languages would include the logic of propositions and programming languages, such as Java.
— What does it mean to have brought the 27th edition of the ESSLLI to UPF?
— How would you explain ‘formal language’ and ‘natural language’ to a layperson?
— What do language, logic and computation have in common? Can reality be transformed into a set of algorithms?
— It is one of the most important summer schools in its field. It is organized
— ‘Natural language’ refers to the languages spoken by humans, whether
— Natural language follows patterns or rules. They may be probabilistic,
·Profiles·
October 2015
guage is not so different in this regard, although its complexity and role in our social relations and cognition certainly influence how we go about adapting it to our needs.
— Do statistics and psychology play a role in the conceptualization of language? — Absolutely. The natural world is so complex that researchers tend to take a ‘divide and conquer’ approach to it, focusing on just a few aspects of a given phenomenon. Hence, the boundaries between disciplines and methodologies. This strategy may be inevitable, but it is also dangerous.
— How can the architecture of human language be described? What differences are there between different languages?
Frederic Camallonga
subject to exceptions, or different from the rules you learned at school, but they can be inferred by observing how we speak. Logic and computation also follow defined rules with specific properties. Therefore, if we can map what we observe in language to a logic or computational process, we will learn something.
— To what extent can language be said to refer to or explain the world we live in? What limitations does it have when it comes to interpreting reality? — People often say that language ‘has meaning’, but really we are the ones doing the referring, explaining, and interpreting. Language is only a tool, like a pencil. We can use a pencil to do a lot of things other than write. Lan-
— All human languages have a vocabulary (morphemes), a system for combining it in complex words and structures (grammar), and conventions with regard to interpretation and usage (semantics and pragmatics). They also all have certain minimum units that are meaningless on their own (e.g., sounds) and a system for combining them to form morphemes (phonology). Beyond that, there is incredible variety. To give one exotic example, the Dagaare language, spoken in Ghana, does not divide nouns into count nouns (lake) and non-count nouns (rice), but rather uses the morphology of ‘number’ to mark whether or not an object is individuated regularly or not, such that the same suffix (-ri) is added to the word rice to refer to a grain of rice and to the word lake to refer to a plurality of lakes. This example raises the question of whether there could be a theory on the limits of variation. What do the Catalan and Dagaare number systems have in common? Because of their abstract nature, formal models help us research these questions.
upf.edu 09 — I would highlight two: knowing how to absorb and filter the avalanche of information we are exposed to today and not pointlessly encouraging it.
— What would you highlight from your experience as vice-rector? — I have really enjoyed meeting people from all fields and of all backgrounds and categories, as well as learning how the different communities, both academic and administrative, work.
— What projects have been launched? — I have mainly worked on two goals: improving planning and contracting processes and enhancing human resource policy, for example, by participating in the EU’s ‘Human Resources Strategy for Researchers’ (HRS4R) programme.
— Academic inbreeding is a recurring theme at universities. What measures is UPF taking in this area? — One of the most important measures being taken to reduce it is to better publicize job openings at UPF in order to attract applicants from all over. The implementation of a dissociation policy has also helped, that is, not contracting the university’s own PhDs for tenure-track positions until they have left UPF and worked somewhere else for at least two years.
— Another common topic is the lack of women faculty. What can be done to increase their numbers? — I would like to point to one very important factor: being very careful not to penalize or reward external behaviour (e.g., excessive modesty or self-confidence) that does not reflect a person’s true value.
SHE LIKES
Above all, spending time with her family, as well as: A MUSICIAN: Dave Grohl A BOOK: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro A VALUE: Responsibility l
— Turning to your experience as vice-rector for teaching staff, what challenges do the information society and new technologies pose for faculty?
l
l
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·In depth·
UPF and the proliferation of university rankings Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the number of such rankings, both national and international, in which UPF has carved out a place for itself among the leading young universities ‘University rankings are widely reported in the media and, thus, have a large social impact. People love lists and rankings, as if everything were as simple as a football league.’ So summarized Carles Ramió, vice-rector for Institutional Planning and Evaluation at UPF, the growing interest in university rankings.
According to the vice-rector, ‘Rankings are important for UPF, as we tend to do pretty well: we tend to be ranked first or within the top three in the national rankings and perform notably in the international ones.’ He added, ‘However, they are not equally good for everyone, as they depend on how the items are weighted and
October 2015
whether the ranking is done in absolute or relative terms. UPF is a very small, very young university that, for example, simply cannot compete in absolute rankings of scientific output.’ Nevertheless, the many rankings available (the most recent report by the European University Association on rankings, which looked at only those with the greatest impact and influence, identified fifteen) and the different positions a single university might have depending on how each ranking is calculated can often lead to confusion. Lluís Coma, a specialist in UPF’s Studies, Planning and Evaluation Unit, explained these disparities thusly: ‘Each ranking gives preference to a given area of universities’ activity, usually teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and internationalization. That preference is reflected in the choice of indicators taken into account and the relative weight given
·In depth·
October 2015
to each one in the final calculation of where each institution stands.’
Multiple prestigious rankings, different focuses Some rankings are clearly oriented towards research (Leiden or Scimago); the Academic Ranking of World Universities (better known as the Shanghai ranking) gives more importance to indicators such as the number of alumni who are Nobel laureates; the Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rankings, whilst taking teaching into account,
UPF will host the annual THE Young Universities Summit primarily focus on research and institutional reputation. Other rankings aim to distance themselves from closed rankings of universities by allowing users to prepare their own rankings, based on the indicators they choose. This is the case with U-Multirank, promoted by the European Union, and its Spanish version, U-rankings, sponsored by the IVIE and the BBVA Foundation. Another key proposal at the national level is that offered by the CyD Foundation. In addition to the general rankings, many rankings, both national and international, seek to differentiate themselves from the rest by offering distinct products, whether that means ranking institutions by field (as the Shanghai and THE rankings do, the latter of which ranked UPF 67th worldwide in the social sciences), more specifically by subject (such as the QS, which ranks UPF 23rd in economics), or even preparing rankings of the top young universities.
UPF, twelfth-best young university in the world, according to THE The ranking in which Pompeu Fabra has performed best is the Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 ranking, a list of the world’s top one hundred universities under 50 years old. In the 2015 edition, UPF was ranked twelfth in the
upf.edu 11
Evolution of UPF’s performance on three main rankings Times higher education World University Rankings
World Europe Spain
2012
2013 2014 2015
201-225 164 165 164 84-93 72 72 76 1-3 1 1 2
QS World University Rankings
World Europe Spain
2012
2013 2014 2015
2012
2013 2014 2015
266 281 298 295 124 132 138 133 5 5 6 6
ARWU (SHANGHAI)
World 401-500 301-400 301-400 201-300 Spain 8-11 5-8 5-8 2-5 *Does not allow filtering by region (Europe)
world (up one slot from 2014), fifth in Europe, and first in Spain. According to Phil Baty, the editor of Times Higher Education World University Rankings, ‘UPF is a dynamic institution, strongly positioned in our ranking of young universities. I think that not only being young, but also being small, could be an advantage when it comes to maintaining a specialized, flexible, responsive university in today’s changing times, one with a simple management system that allows people to work, without requiring every decision to be based on some labyrinthine bureaucracy.’ Baty explained why the oldest institutions tend to dominate the THE’s general ranking, noting, ‘Traditional older universities have had time to accumulate considerable wealth and to build large alumni networks spanning multiple generations. They are usually part of the very structure of major cities and, thus, tend to have a good reputation that helps them stay on top.’ In the framework of the events to mark its 25th anniversary over the 2015/2016 academic year, UPF will host the annual THE Young Universi-
ties Summit, a meeting of the top 100 universities under 50 years old. The event will take place on the Ciutadella campus on 6 and 7 April 2016 and will be attended by the heads of the participating institutions.
Rankings as part of the university’s strategy According to Ramió, these university rankings are beneficial: ‘The rankings have a clear positive externality; they keep universities focused on continuous improvement and excellence, as they all want to be well-ranked. They introduce a competitive logic in the system that is healthy in that each institution tries to do things better’, he said. This notwithstanding, the vice-rector also warned of the potential negative impact of rankings in the event of excessive reliance on them. ‘You cannot design university policy solely with a view to doing well in the rankings and improving certain weighted aspects, such as research in international papers, whilst neglecting other very relevant aspects for the university community and society at large. UPF is quite cognizant of this’, he said.
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·Community·
October 2015
The new faces of the 25th anniversary A group of new first-year students at UPF describe what led them to choose the university and their programmes, as well as their initial impressions. It has been 25 years since Pompeu Fabra University first opened its doors. In October 1990, 316 law and economics and business students sat, for the first time, in the chairs of the new classrooms in the old Fòrum Vergés building, at Carrer Balmes 132, on the corner of Rosselló. In October 2015, nearly 2,650 new first-year students enrolled on 26 different bachelor’s degree programmes. All placed their trust in an urban institution that today comprises three different campuses: Ciutadella, Mar, and Poblenou. Things have obviously changed a lot, but the newcomers’
Bàrbara Serra: ‘I hope to enjoy myself and get a good education to find work’
enthusiasm and eagerness to embark on a new stage in their life remains the same.
The newest programmes draw students The UPF Open Degree programme, launched in the 2015/2016 academic year, allows students to choose subjects from various degree programmes during their first year. Bàrbara Serra chose it (she has registered for subjects on business management and administration, political science, and labour management and relations) because she was interested in more than one programme.
Andrés Martin: ‘The university has done its utmost to make us feel comfortable’
‘Once I found out about the UPF Open Degree programme, which would allow me to sample various programmes and then decide, I knew it was the right choice for me’, she explained. She hopes to enjoy herself and have a positive experience, but above all to get a good education that will allow her to find work. Aitana Álvarez, from Mallorca, made major changes in her life to study at UPF. She has enrolled on the bachelor’s degree programme in Law, one of the programmes that the university has offered from the start, but will combine it with the programme in Criminology. She will do this through the new dou-
Ariadna Fosch: ‘The spaces on the Poblenou campus are huge!’
October 2015
ble degree programme launched this academic year, which Aitana had been hoping to see for some time. When the opportunity arose, she did not hesitate. ‘When I saw it on UPF’s website last year, I didn’t think twice: a good university, in a city like Barcelona, and in such a central location… It didn’t require a lot of thought.’ These first few days she says she has felt both nervous and excited. Jan Baserba scored 9.7 on the university entrance exam, the highest mark in the province of Girona in 2015. He chose to enrol on the bachelor’s degree programme in Philosophy, Politics and Law, a fairly new programme (it was launched three years ago), offered jointly with Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) and the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), which this year had the highest cut-off mark for admission (12.78) of all programmes offered at UPF. ‘I chose this programme for the subjects and, especially, its interdisciplinary
·Comunitat· focus, as well as for the possibilities it offers to get to know multiple universities’, Jan explained. The Girona native has a positive opinion of his initial contact with UPF, where he has been particularly surprised by the high levels of political and cultural activity he has encountered.
Interest in the fields of biomedicine and communication On the Mar campus, Andrés Martin enrolled on the bachelor’s degree programme in Human Biology this year. The young Amposta native highlights the warm welcome he has received from both the different university services and the students from other years and programmes. After studying sociology at the University of Barcelona (UB), Andrés knew that he wanted to study biology and ultimately chose UPF. ‘The training it offers has a much more practical orientation, which will leave me better prepared to successfully enter the job market’, he explained. Ariadna Fosch will also study on the Mar campus, but will split her time between it and the Poblenou campus, as the bachelor’s degree programme she has chosen, in Biomedical Engineering, is carried out in both places. ‘The Poblenou campus is what has most surprised me these first few days: the spaces there are huge!’ she said. For Ariadna,
upf.edu 13 the fact that the programme, which was launched in the 2011/2012 year, combines the more technical engineering part with the part on biology from the start was decisive in her choice. Likewise on the Poblenou campus, Mar Catot, from the town of Monistrol de Calders (Moianès), chose to enrol on the bachelor’s degree programme in Translation and Interpretation because she loves languages, especially Catalan sign language. ‘I want to learn that system because it is linked to a sector of society that is often marginalized. I would really like to be able to help it grow’, she said. Surprised by the number of Erasmus students she has met, she chose UPF because ‘it is the only Catalan university that offers these studies, it is very prestigious, and it has a lot of faculties and degree programmes.’ Alex Benítez has enrolled on the bachelor’s degree in Journalism and has been pleasantly surprised by the ‘good vibes’ established from the start between students and faculty. Speaking of the institution’s 25th anniversary, he said, ‘I see UPF as a relatively young, modern university, able to understand the times we live in and to adapt to them technologically.’ Indeed, all of these students are aware that they have enrolled at the university in a special year, that marking its 25th anniversary, something that all of them find exciting.
Jan Baserba: ‘There is a lot of political and cultural activity on the Ciutadella campus’
The majority of the 2,634 new firstyear students were admitted through the application process (2,565), and 91% were able to enrol on their first choice of programme. They hail from the city of Barcelona (30%), elsewhere in the province of Barcelona (41.4%), and, to a lesser extent, the provinces of Girona (7.4%), Tarragona (5.4%), and Lleida (3.4%). Nearly 11% are from elsewhere in Spain, and 1.4% are international. With regard to gender, 59.4% are women and 40.6% are men; on average, they are 19.36 years old. However, the latter two variables vary by programme. Thus, the aver-
age age of enrolment on the bachelor’s degree programme in Telematics Engineering was 20.67, whilst for the bachelor’s degree programme in Translation and Interpretation, it was 19.95. With regard to gender, considerably more men enrolled at the Polytechnic School (78.6% men vs 21.4% women), whilst considerably more women enrolled on the UPF Open Degree programme (72.7% women vs 27.3% men) and in the faculties of Translation and Interpretation (81.9% vs 18.1%), Communication (73.1% vs 26.9%), and Health and Life Sciences.
(*) FIGURES PENDING ENROLMENT OF A SMALL GROUP OF STUDENTS, ESPECIALLY IN THE FIELD OF TELEMATICS ENGINEERING
Snapshot of the incoming class
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·In depth·
October 2015
Frederic Camallonga
Salvador Alsius
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CATALAN AUDIOVISUAL COUNCIL (CAC) AND LECTURER IN THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AT UPF
‘We need to look out for what matters most, the concept of public SALVADOR ALSIUS CLAVERA (Barcelona,
1948) was one of the founders of UPF’s journalism programme, which was launched in 1992 in the Rambla building. He has been a lecturer for it ever since. In July 2014, he became vice-president of the Catalan Audiovisual Council (CAC), the independent authority that regulates audiovisual communication in Catalonia.
— This year, UPF is celebrating its 25th anniversary. How has the university changed over the years? —The rector at the time, Enric Argullol, invited me, as a journalism professional, to sit on the committee tasked with drawing up the curricu-
lum for this degree. It was immediately apparent to me that UPF could be an innovative university, governed by different criteria, a trait that has been confirmed over the years. However, that fire needs to be fed. We have to keep fighting. Otherwise, the institution will fall prey to inertia. I consider myself lucky; I was able to participate early on in a number of important things, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), at TV3, and at UPF.
— Has teaching in the field of journalism changed a lot over the years? — Yes, it has, and not only here, but at all universities, plenty of which have sought to follow in UPF’s footsteps
in different ways. Emphasizing basic training and a practice-oriented approach are some of the distinctive features of how journalism is taught at the university. All of this is related to the fact that, at the start, efforts were made to recruit a strong faculty, who brought their skills and knowledge to bear in the classroom. Finding the right balance between academics and people with hands-on experience in the everyday business of journalism is key. These days, there seems to be a trend towards making things increasingly academic, and that worries me.
— Is the ‘integrated newsroom’, which you set up, a model for other universities?
October 2015
— Absolutely, and I would add that it is starting to be one for the profession as a whole. The integration of newsrooms and multimedia and transmedia work is inexorable in the media industry, so it is important to prepare highly versatile students. I am not referring to ‘all-terrain’ journalists, but rather turning out people who are equally comfortable working with all formats. In my view, the journalism curriculum has two crown jewels: first, the basic training, which students complete at the different faculties in the first and second year, an intrinsically good feature that has contributed to the programme’s internal prestige; and second, the integrated newsroom in which they participate in the third year, where students earn their professional chops, and which is the final stage in their basic training.
— Is it harder for journalists to do their jobs well today? — I’ve been in the profession for some time now, and, looking back, there has never, ever been a time when people haven’t said, ‘Times are changing. From now on, things are going to be very different. Everything is going to be harder.’ The Internet obviously constitutes a major change both in our lives and for the profession. But so did the advent of video, home cameras, etc. What really worries me is the possible deterioration of fundamental aspects of the profession, such as the ability to narrate what we call reality in accordance with certain basic principles: truthfulness, justice, freedom, etc. That’s what sometimes strikes me as fragile.
— What are the main strengths and weaknesses of the Catalan audiovisual system? — Catalonia has a strong, sound, high-quality audiovisual system with an obvious flagship, Televisió de Catalunya and the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (Catalan Broadcasting Company, CCMA) as a whole, which has done invaluable work over the last thirty years to normalize the Catalan language and boost the coun-
·In depth·
‘We are not looking for “all-terrain” journalists, but rather people who are comfortable working with all types of media’ ‘I am less concerned about business concentration than vertical integration’ ‘The Catalan audiovisual system has a huge problem with regard to certain asymmetries’
try’s self-esteem. Nevertheless, there is a huge problem with regard to certain asymmetries. The system is highly dependent on media produced outside of Catalonia, content in Spanish that is deeply ingrained, over which neither the CAC nor the Catalan government has jurisdiction and which, by law, cannot even include broadcasts in Catalan. There are other examples, too, such as the difficulty of producing advertising in Catalan. These are just some of the infinite drawbacks of not having your own state.
— And now the new media business platforms are jumping on the wagon… — That is an added danger: these are new means of production, which are not conventional media, but rather transnational companies that moreover control the infrastructure and communication technology. Telecoms are starting to produce their own content, and they are very unlikely to produce anything in Catalan, or tailored to the idiosyncrasies and sensibility of a small country. I’m less concerned about business concentration than vertical integration. It is a huge threat, and it is coming on strong. Netflix is another example.
upf.edu 15 — What can be done? — Once again, we can only play David to their Goliath, as we did in 1984, when TV3 was created. It took imagination, and we had to struggle to create a broadcaster that was worthy of a state. Today, too, we are facing an uphill battle to achieve anything: production quotas, a voice-over system, etc. I don’t really know what needs be done. That is one of the conclusions the CAC is trying to reach in the Llibre Blanc de l’Audiovisual (White Paper on Audiovisual Media) that the Catalan parliament commissioned it to write and with which it is trying to take the pulse of the entire sector. We need to look out for what matters most, the concept of public service, which is more important than the media themselves, whether public or private, which are contingent.
— Should the CAC have jurisdiction over online content? — This is a topic of discussion among audiovisual regulators the world over, none of which are Spanish, as Spain is the only European country that lacks a body for this purpose. However, the Internet is like an ocean that pours out through every crack, and this type of regulation is very difficult. It’s already expensive just to regulate radio and television stations. There are two main questions: whether there needs to be a shift towards controlling online content, too, and whether the CAC should also include telecommunications, two areas that are closely related. In principle, the answer is yes, that all of these issues should fall under the aegis of a single authority; however, it would no longer be the CAC, but rather a new body.
— Are there any specific aspects of the Internet that you find especially troubling? — In the area of protecting minors, not only online, but also in general, the CAC has drawn certain red lines, and within this area, there is one problem that we are especially attuned to: online gambling, which is on the rise. It’s something that should concern us all; it needs to take precedence over individual sensibilities.
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·Online·
October 2015
ESSENTIA has generated many new applications for music research and the music industry The audio processing software was created by the Music Technology Group (MTG) led by Xavier Serra ESSENTIA is an audio analysis software library developed by the Music Technology Group (MTG) in the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC). It is modular, expandable, and easy to incorporate into any computer program. Distributed under an open software licence to promote its use in research, it is also available under proprietary licence for use in commercial applications. The library includes an extensive collection of audio-processing algorithms that enable the automatic retrieval of content properties, the statistical characterization of data, and calculations involving large sets of spectral descriptors. ESSENTIA also won the ACM Multimedia 2013 Open Source Software competition. The MTG, set up more than twenty years ago, is a research group strongly committed to technology transfer that has sought to make open research compatible with having a social and industrial impact. ESSENTIA is a paradigmatic case in that it has generated a wide variety of new applications, both for commercial use and for research.
Freesound Labs Launched in July 2015, Freesound Labs is a directory of projects, hacks, applications, research, and other initiatives that use content from Freesound, a free, collaborative, online
platform that uses ESSENTIA and is based on Creative Commons licences. It is used in many artistic productions, including plays, ringtones, and feature films, as well as by prestigious research institutions worldwide. Thanks to the Freesound API, computer applications have been developed able to directly access the content. According to Serra, it is ‘a collaborative platform for sharing sounds’.
AcousticBrainz, a high-impact project for the scientific community The MTG and the MetaBrainz Foundation joined forces to lead AcousticBrainz, an initiative based on the contributions of users who use the ESSENTIA software to analyse music recordings. It is thus another source of the data that this software analyses. To date, AcousticBrainz has analysed almost three million audio tracks. For each one, the tool generates data on basic characteristics, such as tonality or the number of beats per minute. These data are then used to extract other more important characteristics for the end user, such as the piece’s mood or genre. All of this information can be accessed through the AcousticBrainz website for use in research or computer applications. ‘We hope that AcousticBrainz will have a large impact on the scientific community. The data obtained will make it possible to take on new and interesting challenges that will give rise
Xavier Serra, coordinator of the Music Technology Group. Frederic Camallonga
to innovative technologies’, Serra explained. Users can use the AcousticBrainz website to analyse their own music collections. The contribution of many users is key, as it will be what guarantees the tool’s success.
October 2015
·Online·
NEW PROJECTS TO GROW OUT OF ESSENTIA MUSICBRICKS,
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#UPFPhoto Images shared by members of the UPF community on Instagram with the hashtag #FotoUPF (#UPFPhoto)
promoting innovation in musical technology In early 2015, the MTG launched ‘Musical Building Blocks for Digital Makers and Content Creators’, or MusicBricks, a new collaborative project within the framework of an innovative action financed by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme and coordinated by the French company SIGMA Orionis SA. The main goal of MusicBricks is to mature innovative technologies obtained through research to make them available and useful to the cultural and creative industries sector in Europe.
@miguelmeso Reflected library 219/365
CAMUT, automatic
analysis of Carnatic and Hindustani music
The group recently received one of the 45 Proof of Concept grants awarded by the European Research Council to researchers who have already been awarded a research grant from the European body. It will use the €150,000 grant to carry out the project ‘Culture Aware Music Technologies’ (CAMUT), which aims to promote the commercialization of some of the technologies developed within the framework of the ‘Computational Models for the Discovery of the World’s Music’ (CompMusic) project and bring technologies for the automatic analysis of Carnatic and Hindustani music to the Indian market.
more information
— Musical Technology Group (MTG): http://www.mtg.upf.edu/ — ESSENTIA: http://essentia.upf.edu/ — AcousticBrainz:
http://acousticbrainz_org/ — MusicBricks: http://mtg.upf.edu/projects/musicbricks — CompMusic: http://compmusic.upf.edu/
@jolapompeu Llueix el sol al campus de la Ciutadella
@biizarre Feliz día de la danza. Happy dance day. Dancer: Clara Sans
@univpompeufabra
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·News·
October 2015
Recognition
The Department of Experimental and Health Sciences named a Maria de Maeztu unit of excellence
Arcadi Navarro, director of the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS), with Carmen Vela, Spanish Secretary of State for Research, Development, and Innovation. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND INNOVATION The department is one of six research units in Spain to receive the new distinction, awarded by the Office of the Secretary of State for Research, Development, and Innovation of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, within the framework of its ‘Centres of Excellence’ programme. The award includes 500,000 in funding every year for four years. The new Maria de Maeztu distinction recognizes excellence in smaller research structures, especially ones located at universities, and thus serves to complement the Severo Ochoa distinctions awarded to research centres and similar larger institutions. According to Arcadi Navarro, director of the DCEXS, ‘As mem-
bers of Pompeu Fabra University, we are especially pleased by this recognition of our efforts to show that a university department can conduct top-tier research. It goes to show that with the right governance
The department is considered to be one of the leading biomedical research units in Europe structures and recruitment processes, and a lot of teamwork, you can go far.’ He added, ‘With time, the current era will come to be seen as a golden age in the history of science in Spain.’ The same highly demanding requirements, criteria, and assessment
and selection processes were used to determine the scientific excellence of both centres and smaller units. Both types of structures were selected based on their scientific performance and strategic programmes following a rigorous evaluation in which 115 renowned international scientists participated. According to the Office of the Secretary of State for Research, Development, and Innovation, the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences at UPF is one of the leading biomedical research units in Europe, with a remarkable portfolio of patents, start-ups, and spin-offs, a long list of global partnerships, and an internationally renowned doctoral programme in biomedicine.
October 2015
·News·
Education
#UPFResearch
Strong performance by the first graduating class in Medicine
Rin4’, scientific dissemination for a lay audience
UPF-UAB bachelor’s degree programme in Medicine, class of 2015. upf Some 31% of the students ranked among the top 1,000 in terms of marks, and 71% ranked among the top 3,050 (the first quartile), in a year that saw nearly 12,000 candidates, one of the largest classes in recent times. The programme’s graduating class was moreover one of just four in all Spain in which 100% of the students who sat the exam outperformed the cutoff mark. Joaquim Gea, dean of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at UPF, was very satisfied with the results, noting that ‘the largest share of our students were in the top 500’. This achievement bears witness to the soundness of the decision to launch the joint bachelor’s degree programme in Medicine with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in the 2008/2009 academic year. An interuniversity initiative, it primarily aims to produce versatile physicians able to practice their profession in a variety of fields.
More than a hundred doctoral students at UPF participated in the Rin4’ competition, in which, in no more than four minutes, they had to present their doctoral research to a lay audience. The panel of judges for the final round, made up of Núria Sebastián, director of the UPF Doctoral School, Emma Rodero, a lecturer in the Department of Communication, and Mònica López-Ferrado, a scientific journalist for the newspaper Ara, awarded the first prize, consisting of 900, to Cristina Galusca, for her explanation of the research she is conducting in the Reasoning and Infant Cognition (RICO) research group in the Department of Information and Communication Technologies. In the evaluation of each presentation, special emphasis was given to the clarity of the presentation, the context of the research, the degree of detail the candidates were able to convey in the limited time they had to work with, and the use of non-verbal resources and language. The audience also doubled as judges, voting on the best presentation. The aim of the first edition of the doctoral competition, a groundbreaking initiative at academic institutions in Spain, was to underscore the importance of young scientists’ communication skills with a view to narrowing the gap between scientific knowledge and the general public.
Cristina Galusca, winner of the Rin4’ competition. upf
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Still from the film. #UPFTalent
‘Les Amigues de l’Àgata’ triumphs at multiple film festivals The film, by Laia Alabart, Alba Cros, Laura Rius and Marta Verheyen, alumni of UPF’s Audiovisual Communication programme, grew out of a final-year project for the programme. With the guidance of the filmmakers Isaki Lacuesta and Elias León Siminiani and the film critic Gonzalo de Lucas, all lecturers in the university’s Department of Communication, they won the audience award at the Barcelona International Auteur Film Festival (D’A). The showing was the only one to sell out. In light of its success, an additional screening was arranged. The film also won the Abycine Indie award at the Albacete International Film Festival. The debut effort by the four young filmmakers from UPF, made possible through crowdfunding, is about the gradual rift that occurs in a group of friends when they part ways to enrol at university. The film ranges from their life in Barcelona to a trip to the Costa Brava, where the main character, Àgata, begins to experience how the world she created with her childhood friends Carla, Aria, and Mar is changing.
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·News·
October 2015
#UPFTalent
Strong showing at the interuniversity sport competitions UPF (including the university’s affiliated centres) ended the 2014/2015 sport season on a high note, obtaining a total of 7 medals at the Spanish University Championships and 29 medals at the Catalan University Championships. At the national level, the women’s beach handball team took the bronze at the Spanish University Championship held in Fuengirola. With regard to individual sports, attention should be called to the strong performances turned in by Judith Baeta, gold medallist in taekwondo (under 53 kg), and Marta Trillo, silver medallist in golf, in both the single and, along with Gonzalo Acha, team events. The remaining medals went to Alejandro Juárez, who took home the silver in taekwondo (under 54 kg), and the bronze medallists Lara Lucas (badminton) and Guillem Valls (track and field, 400 m). UPF was also the university with the highest participation in the Catalan University Championships, fielding a total of 17 teams. Two of them – women’s five-a-side football and women’s beach football – placed first. The rest of the medal count for team sports was rounded out by the ultimate Frisbee, women’s beach handball, and men’s 3x3 basketball teams, all of which won silver medals. With regard to individual competitions, UPF athletes excelled in sports as diverse as judo, track and field, swimming, table tennis, mountain racing, and chess.
Application period
Students on the Ciutadella campus. UPF/Frederic Camallonga
Open Degree programme popular among prospective students The new proposal, the first of its kind in the Spanish university system, got off to a strong start. A total of 2.7 applications were received for each available place, with a cutoff mark for admission of 11.45. The other new programme this academic year, the double degree programme in Criminology and Public Prevention Policies and Law, was likewise well received, with a cut-off mark of 11.20. Overall, applications to UPF were up 6.6% from the previous academic year, securing its position as the third most popular institution in the Catalan university system in terms of absolute demand as measured by students listing it as their first choice. This upwards trend can be seen in the cutoff marks, which increased for most programmes. Special attention should be drawn to the bachelor’s degree programme in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, offered jointly with the Alianza 4 Universidades (4 Universities Alliance, A-4U), which saw a 30% increase in applications in its third year, resulting in a cut-off mark of 12.78, the
highest at UPF and the fourth highest in the Catalan university system as a whole. As for other recently launched programmes, the double degree programme in Law and Business Management and Administration or Economics is now firmly established, with a cut-off mark of 11.96 and some 2.48 applicants per place. Likewise, demand for the programme in International Business Economics climbed once again, pushing the cut-off mark up to 12.37, the third highest at UPF and the tenth highest in the Catalan system overall. In addition to the newer degree programmes, attention should be called to the bachelor’s degree programme in Medicine, which once again registered the highest ratio of demand to supply (with 8.55 applications per place) and had a cutoff mark of 12.63 (the sixth highest in the system). It is the most popular degree programme in quantitative terms, with some 513 applicants listing it as their top choice.
October 2015
·News·
#UPFResearch
UPFMón Debates
DNA sequencing techniques improve the study of skeletal remains
Social movements and civic engagement
Ferran Casals, head of the Genomics Service and a lecturer in the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences at UPF; Jaume Bertranpetit and Francesc Calafell, researchers at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF); and Assumpció Malgosa, a researcher in the Biological Anthropology Unit and head of the Osteobiography Research Group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), presented a groundbreaking forensic genetics study of remains from a Spanish Civil War mass grave. The research, which was commissioned by the Catalan Ministry of Governance and Institutional Relations, showed that ‘through the use of next-generation sequencing technology, for the first time genetic studies of skeletal remains from the Spanish Civil War could be conducted with extraordinarily good results, which opens the door to identifying these human remains with a high degree of reliability, including for up to second-degree kin’, explained Ferran Casals. In this regard, Jaume Bertranpetit explained that, ‘This work opens up unprecedented possibilities to conduct a sufficiently broad study of the skeletal remains that have already been exhumed, as well as others that may be recovered in future. The methodology will make it possible to determine the precise identity of the people whose remains have been recovered.’ This technology, ‘in addition to being sensitive and effective, streamlines the processes and is much more cost-effective’, Bertranpetit added.
The panel discussion, held on 19 March 2015 and organized by the UPF Board of Trustees, underscored the importance of empowering citizens and the role that social movements play in the current context. Nearly 300 people followed the arguments and considerations of Muriel Casals, an economist and the former president of Òmnium Cultural; Ada Colau, a social activist and founder of the Plataforma d’Afectats per la Hipoteca (Mortgage Victims’ Platform, PAH), currently the mayor of Barcelona; Itziar González, an architect and member of the driving force behind Parlament Ciutadà (Citizens’ Parliament); and Carles Ramió, a professor of political and administration science at UPF. Núria Basi, president of the Board of Trustees, and Jaume Casals, rector of UPF, were responsible for opening and closing the session, respectively. The journalist and UPF trustee Milagros Pérez Oliva presented the panellists, calling them ‘clear components of the new civic power’, and moderated the subsequent discussion. The media’s power to set the political agenda, the characteristics of the new crop of leaders, the practical effects of empowering citizens and their entry into politics, the feminization of politics (associated with concepts such as mediation, addition, and cooperation), and the electoral system and open lists were some of the topics discussed at the seventh edition of the UPF Món Debates series.
Itziar González and Ada Colau during the debate. upf
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Fernando Pérez-Borbujo, Elena Rojas, Jaume Casals, and David Trías. upf Donations
The Library expands its collection With two donations formalized through assignment agreements. First, Elena Rojas and David Trías, the widow and son of Eugenio Trías, the philosopher and UPF lecturer who passed away in 2013, assigned the University his personal library and archive, in recognition of the creation of the Eugenio Trías Centre for Philosophical Studies, coordinated by Fernando Pérez-Borbujo, a lecturer in the Department of Humanities. The assignment will have a term of ten years and may be renewed for equal periods. The UPF Library considers the addition of these collections to be of great interest for the expansion of its book and documentary collections. Both are viewed as valuable assets for the study of and research into issues of philosophy and thought in general and Eugenio Trías’s work in particular. Second, it has incorporated the collection of the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (IBEI), consisting of some 1,500 volumes on topics related to political science and security and international relations, deemed to be of considerable value for both teaching and research.
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Members of the KRISTINA project group. upf #UPFResearch
Technology to overcome communication challenges of immigrants In Europe, migratory flows of people are on the rise. This situation is not without challenges. Often, migrants to other countries face problems related to healthcare, isolation, or unawareness of job opportunities, difficulties that stem from a lack of effective communication. The European KRISTINA project (‘a knowledge-based information agent with social competence and human interaction capabilities’) was launched under the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme to tackle these challenges from a technological perspective. KRISTINA is coordinated by Leo Wanner, an ICREA researcher in the Department of Information and Communication Technologies at UPF and the director of the Natural Language Processing Research Group (TALN). The project’s primary aim is to research and develop technologies run on mobile communication devices to help immigrants become socially competent and able to communicate in the language of their country of residence. The idea is especially designed to help these people overcome language and cultural barriers in their host country.
·News·
October 2015
#UPFResearch
#UPFGraduation2015
Interdisciplinary analysis of nuclear energy
The class of 2015, the year of the university’s 25th anniversary
September saw the launch of the HoNESt (History of Nuclear Energy and Society) project, coordinated by Albert Presas, a researcher in the History of Science Studies Research Group (GEHC) in the Department of Humanities. The project brings together 24 research institutions for the shared purpose of furthering our knowledge of the dynamics established between nuclear development and society in the last sixty years in more than 20 countries. How civil society interacts with nuclear developments changes over time and depends on whether this interaction is local, national, or international. This research aims to cover the complexity of the political, technological, and economic challenges, and to grasp the state of affairs with regard to security, the perception of risk, communication and the media, public engagement, social movements, etc. The project offers a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary, and integrated approach that will conceptually draw on large technical systems (LTSs) and the integrated sociotechnical system (IST), and which will forge close and innovative partnerships with historians and social scientists with expertise in the field. It will engage the key stakeholders in this discipline – industry, policymakers, and civil society – in a structured dialogue the results of which will be inserted into a public debate on nuclear energy.
Nearly 1,900 students from the class of 2015, the 22nd graduating class at UPF, celebrated their graduation on 3 and 4 July in the company of family and friends at a ceremony that took place at the start of the events to commemorate the university’s 25th anniversary. The graduation ceremony for the bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctoral students was held in the courtyard of the Roger de Llúria building on the Ciutadella campus. Students went up on stage to receive their commemorative diplomas over the course of six different sessions: two held on Friday, 3 July, and four on Saturday, 4 July. The sessions could be streamed live on the institutional website and were led by Jaume Casals, the rector of UPF, and Núria Basi, president of the university’s Board of Trustees, a body that provided support for the act, as well as various vice-rectors and academic officials, including deans and the directors and heads of various centres and programmes. The commencement addresses were given by the UPF lecturers Coloma Ballester, Núria Sebastián, Chelo Chacartegui, M. Àngels Fèlix, Dolors Oller, and Marta Reynal-Querol. The event ended with a performance by the UPF chorus, which offered a rendition of Gaudeamus igitur, the university song par excellence.
Students at graduation. upf
·News·
October 2015
upf.edu 23 Recognition
#UPF25years
1,200 alumni participate in the 1st UPF Alumni Meeting
UPF alumni by the photo booth set up for the occasion. UPF/Mario Pérez On 18 September, within the ital Partners; and Montserrat Vendrell, director of Biocat and Parc context of the events to commemorate the university’s 25th anniverCientífic de Barcelona. The second sary, the Ciutadella campus hosted part of the event, of a more festive nature, featured the presentathe first UPF Alumni party. Under the slogan ‘Torna a la Pomtion of UPF’s 25th anniversary vidpeu’ (Come back to UPF), around eo and concluded with a concert a thousand former undergraduby the group Boreals, whose memate and graduate students revisitbers, Miquel Serra and the brothed their time at the university and ers Víctor and Xavier Paradís, are enjoyed a fun reunion. all UPF alumni. The event kicked off with the UPF alumni: a primary focus of panel discussion ‘La universitat: un the 25th anniversary efforts camí d’anada i tornada’ (University: a round trip), featuring UPF UPF wants to use the anniversary to establish a fluid, permaalumni from various fields. The discussion was moderated by Aurora nent, and structural relationship Masip, communications director with its alumni, who are its best for Banc de Sang i ambassadors to the Alumni are Teixits, and included world. It aims to do Pau Agulló, founder this by focusing on UPF’s best and managing directhree main lines of ambassadors to tor of Kernel Anaaction: consolidating the world lytics; Nacho Correand improving alumdor, communications ni services; increasing and public affairs consultant at alumni engagement in the education of current students; and, finalLlorente&Cuenca; Guillem d’Efak, ly, launching a fundraising prodirector of the literary agency Carmen Balcells; Josep Lluís Sanfeliu, gramme to allow them to contribute partner and founder at Ysios Capto the university’s sustainability.
European award for quality in internationalization The Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences at UPF has been awarded the CeQuInt certificate, making it the first and only university in Spain to earn this credential, which is issued by 14 European accreditation agencies in recognition of the incorporation of an international and intercultural dimension into higher education. Awarded by the European Consortium for Accreditation, the quality distinction is given to programmes, centres, and academic institutions that have successfully incorporated a high degree of internationalization into the purpose, function, and delivery of their education. Having faculty from more than 20 countries, teaching 67% of classes in English, taking the Bologna Process seriously, hosting 350 foreign exchange students a year and sending out 300 of its own to participate in exchange programmes abroad, securing a total of 817 internship positions in the last academic year, and the strong reputation of all five of its degree programmes were all key to the faculty’s receipt of the European distinction. The faculty itself has highlighted this achievement, as it serves to recognize the work done.
Àngel Gil, Josep Ferrer and Martí Casadesús. UPF
·Our Alumni· Julio Manrique (Law, 1995) Actor, director and playwright
‘I found my calling in UPF’s Theatre Workshop’ — Why did you decide to study law? — When I was 17, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t a bad student, I was drawn to the humanities, I liked to write… I think that my plan, to the extent that I had one at all, was to study law and then, later, put in an additional two years to earn a journalism degree too. That would give me time to see whether I wanted to be a lawyer or a journalist, or a writer or who knows what else? But what actually happened is that, at university, I discovered theatre.
— How did this training help you in your career? — My favourite subject was philosophy of law. Basically, we studied language and its ambivalence. Words don’t have just one meaning; we have to interpret them. Thinking about language in this way has been very useful to me in my work as an actor, and also as a director. I think that, with a good text, you essentially have to question it. I began to learn that at the Faculty of Law.
students from the Theatre Institute. He knew I was dying to give it a try, so he let me try out, and… that year I failed a lot of classes. And I was very happy.
don’t. Or I don’t ‘yet’. Time will tell… I like being able to tell stories. I find it exciting. Because I like having stories told to me; it’s also something I find exciting.
— What advice would you give students interested in following this path?
— You have also held management positions, such as the artistic director of Teatro Romea. What is it like to experience theatre from that perspective?
— I don’t like to give advice. To borrow from Goytisolo’s ‘Words for Julia’, I am still on my way. I think that theatre and, more broadly, acting are built on passion. It is a passionate choice. The years, the work, the professional and life experiences will let you experience this passion more deeply, let you answer some questions only to raise new
— The responsibility weighed on me, and I wasn’t really able to enjoy it enough at the time. Now, though, I can see how much I learned. Handling the programming for a theatre forces you to look at things from a new and different perspective. In that sense, I guess it helped broaden my underLafotogràfica standing of my profession.
— Today you are a very familiar (and renowned) face in Catalan theatre. What is that like for you? — The fact that people recognize you can be nice and it can be annoying, but it’s not worth losing sleep over. Being recognized by people you care about or even admire, now that is a great gift. When it happens, you can’t help but feel pleased. I think I have been very lucky in my profession. I would have to be an idiot or just plain petty not to see that and feel grateful for it.
— During your studies, you participated in the university’s Theatre Workshop.Whatmemoriesdoyou have of that? — I have very fond memories of that. It is where I found my calling. Josep Maria Mestres, the workshops’ director at the time, is largely responsible for that. He took me by the hand and guided me as I took my first steps. I can never be thankful enough to him for that. Also, it was a very strong group. Guillem Jordi Graells, a founding member of Teatre Lliure, gave classes there; Pere Planella, also from Teatre Lliure, taught a few classes... It was a real luxury! When I was starting the third year of my programme, Mestres was preparing a play, Class Enemy. He needed very young actors and was holding auditions, basically, among
ones regarding your chosen path. If the flame dies out, it doesn’t make sense to keep insisting. I would tell them to ask themselves if this is really something they love. Or, better yet, have them discover that for themselves.
— Actor, director and playwright. Which hat do you like wearing best? — I like to act, and I like to direct. And I would like to have enough patience to be able to sit down and write with a certain degree of regularity, but, unfortunately, I
— You seem like someone who is alwaysdoingsomething.Whatare you planning now? — Projects: Speed the Plow by David Mamet, which, for the first time, I will be both acting in and directing. It will premiere at the Temporada Alta festival of performing arts in Girona, and will be at Teatre Borràs in November. In December and January, it’s back to King Lear, at Teatre Lliure. And in March, at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC), I will be starring in Molière’s Don Juan, which will be directed by David Selvas. And, fortunately, a long etc.