·Key figures·
·In depth·
·Community·
Maria Teresa Cabré: “Failure to master our languages is a serious shortcoming”
Graduate job placement: a priority
Erasmus grants for service and administrative staff: professional development and internationalization
10-11
08-09
12-13
·From the campus·
Research: a focal point of the University’s strategy UPF’s international standing soars on the basis of our overall results in the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme 04-07
The Pompeu Fabra University magazine / No. 8 / September 2014
A quality, international, public university Bachelor’s degree programmes
Health and life sciences > Bioinformatics* > Human Biology > Medicine (UPF-UAB) Economic and business sciences > Business Management and Administration > Business Sciences - Management > Economics > International Business Economics Political and social sciences > Political and Administration Sciences Communication > Audiovisual Communication > Journalism > Advertising and Public Relations Law > Criminology and Public Prevention Policies > Law > Labour Relations Engineering > Biomedical Engineering > Audiovisual Systems Engineering > Computer Science vTelematics Engineering Humanities > Humanities Translation and language sciences > Applied Languages > Translation and Interpreting Double degrees > Law and BMA/Economics Interdisciplinary degrees > Global Studies* > Philosophy, Politics and Economics (UPF-UC3M-UAM) > UPF open degree**
PhDs
> Biomedicine > Political and Social Sciences > Communication > Law > Economics, Finance and Management > History > Humanities > Information and Communication Technologies > Translation and Language Sciences
Master’s degree programmes
Health and life sciences > Bioinformatics for Health Sciences (UPF-UB) > Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industry > Clinical Analysis Laboratory > Biomedical Research > Public Health (UPF-UAB) Political and social sciences > Current Democracies: Nationalism, Federalism and Multiculturalism > European Master in Government > Political Philosophy > Immigration Management > Research in Political Science > Research in Sociology and Demography Communication > International Studies on Media, Power and Difference (UPF-University of Westminster)* > Social Communication > Contemporary Film and Audiovisual Studies > Strategic Management of Communication and Public Relations Law > Advanced in Legal Sciences > Criminology and the Criminal Justice System (UPF-UAB-UdG) > Research in Crime, Justice and Society* Education > Teacher Training: Secondary Education, Language Teaching and Vocational Training (UPF-UOC) Humanities > Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Thought > Chinese Studies > World History Information and communication technologies > Brain and Cognition > Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media > Intelligent Interactive Systems > Sound and Music Computing > Wireless Communications (UPF-UPC)* Translation and language sciences > Discourse Studies: Communication, Society and Learning > Translation Studies > Theoretical and Applied Linguistics *Pending approval **A single pathway to multiple degree programmes
www.upf.edu
September 2014
·Introduction·
jaume casals
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UPF’S RECTOR
FOCUSING ON EUROPE
s we turn our attention to Horizon 2020, the European Union’s instrument for financing applied, highly innovative ‘frontier research’ over the next seven years, the time is right to take stock of FP7, the 7th Framework Programme (2007-2013). Our results for the period in question are satisfying. We received 10% of all the funding allocated to Spanish universities, despite having only 1% of the system’s teaching staff. We are thus not only the most competitive university, but also the one that experienced the greatest proportional increase in comparison to the level of funding obtained via the previous framework programme. We secured over €75 million in total, with 21% of our applications proving successful. Additionally, we are the only university able to say that our level of research income from Europe is comparable to that which we receive from the Spanish government’s equivalent instrument, the National R&D&I Plan.
With regard to the activities funded via FP7, I have often mentioned the Ideas programme, the grants issued by the European Research Council, a category in which we are among Europe’s top 20 universities. We have also achieved good results in FP7’s other specific programmes: in the Coopera-
tion programme, where our Department of Information and Communication Technologies has performed excellently; in the People programme, where we have seen an increase in researcher mobility over the last few years due to Marie Curie grants; and in the Capacities programme, where our results are sound.
UPF’s European funding has increased exponentially in recent years. Furthermore, it has become essential to the University’s financing and running. The completion of the research park on the Ciutadella Campus and the launch of the UPFellows programme for attracting talent are strategic activities that money from Europe has helped bring to fruition. The results we have achieved, thanks to the quality and competitiveness of our lecturers and researchers, identify us as a research-intensive university. Rather than rest on our laurels though, we must realize that we have an opportunity to propel UPF and our country into the global elite. We are committed to continuing along that path, to which end we will be carrying out an in-depth analysis of our strengths and capabilities. Knowing ourselves better will help us to reach out to the world more effectively and to compete with the finest universities.
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.: (+34) 935422000. http://www.upf.edu/ email: gabinet.rectorat@upf.edu Cover illustration by Mikel Jaso. LD B-44938-2010. ISSN 2014-0630
·From the campus·
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A research-intensive university UPF’s results in the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme validate the institution’s strategy of promoting research Despite representing just 1% of the Spanish university system’s teaching staff, UPF obtained 10% of all the funding with which the European Commission (EC) provided Spain’s universities through its 7th Framework Programme (FP7). That statistic reflects “our research staff’s high productivity levels compared to the average”, according to Francesc Posas, vice-rector for Science Policy. As the EC’s main instrument for financing European research and development in the 2007-2013 period,
FP7 “has been vitally important to UPF, because it has marked the beginning of our transition to a genuine research university, with results that have catapulted us into Europe’s top division”, states Àngel Lozano, vicerector for Research. In comparison to FP6, the EC’s previous framework programme, UPF enjoyed a greater increase in funds for research activities than any other European university. The overall sum it obtained multiplied sixfold to stand at over €75 million, while the success
September 2014
02
rate of its applications for funding rose from 15% to 21%, with a total of 145 projects receiving financing.
FP7’s structure “FP7 had a budget of more than €50 billion and was divided into 4 specific programmes, Cooperation, People, Ideas-ERC and Capacities”, explains Eva Martín, the head of UPF’s Research Service. The Cooperation programme, the core of FP7, fostered collaborative research across Europe and with other partner countries in a number of thematic areas, including information and communication technologies (ICTs), and socioeconomic sciences and the humanities. UPF is participating in 65 Cooperation projects and is coordinating 18 of them (15 in the ICTs area and 3 in that of health). The aim of the People programme was to provide researchers within and beyond the European Union with support for mobility and career development. It was implemented via a set of
·From the campus·
September 2014
03
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1. Tomàs Marquès-Bonet, PRIMATESVs project. 2. Laia Pujol, LEAP project. 3. From left to right: Melanie Torres, Arash Bahrehmand, Alun Evans and Josep Blat, IMPART project. 4. Eva Martín, head of UPF’s Research Service. 5. Xavier Serra, CompMusic project. Frederic Camallonga 05
04
Marie Curie actions designed to help researchers reinforce their skills and competences throughout their careers. The Ideas-ERC (European Research Council) programme “fit UPF like a glove in terms of the type of researchers we have and aim to attract, people who are renowned in their fields, highly international, and very capable of working independently and managing ambitious projects”, says Lozano. The number of grants obtained in this category has actually become a benchmark for gauging the quality of the institution’s research and its impact worldwide. In that regard, UPF is Spain’s highestranking university and competes with the leading institutions at the European level. It obtained a total of 19 grants for ‘frontier research’, FP7’s main new aspect. Lastly, the Capacities programme sought to help strengthen and make the most of the research capabilities Europe requires to become a thriving
knowledge-based economy. It encompassed areas such as research infrastructures, research for the benefit of SMEs, and science in society. UPF secured 15 grants in this category.
Focus on Europe Posas is convinced that internationalization is the key to maintaining quality standards in research. It “not only greatly facilitates success when applying for funding in cases requiring consortia and networks; first and foremost, it facilitates success in general, as it means we’re open to the world rather than restricting ourselves to our own talent pool”, he declares. Comparative data on the funds UPF has received also suggests that internationalization is the way forward. The Spanish administration, through the National Scientific and Technical Research Plan of the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), was the University’s main source of income for research in 2009. In 2013, however, it was UPF’s
Attracting talent: a priority UPFellows is a project that the University has established to help attract talent and foster mobility in circumstances marked by fierce competition and cuts in resources. It boasts a budget of over €5 million, having received more than €2 million from FP7’s People programme plus further funding from a pair of complementary sources, the ‘La Caixa’ Foundation and the MINECO’s National R&D&I Plan. It offers career opportunities for postdoctoral researchers of any nationality who have internationally proven levels of excellence and the potential to become world leaders in their respective fields. That applies, for example, to Mikhalis Markakis, who holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has recently joined UPF’s Department of Economics and Business. “The programme is really appealing as it offers very good conditions for carrying out quality research”, he says. Launched in May 2013, UPFellows offers 24 grants through 3-year contracts (renewable subject to satisfactory performance in assessments), funding for each researcher’s work, and complementary support services
·From the campus·
06 upf.edu least significant source of such income. In contrast, funding from the European administration has more than doubled over the last five years to become the University’s leading source of research money. With the data in question in mind, “we’re focusing on Europe, particularly where large, ambitious projects are concerned”, comments Lozano. “Funding from the Spanish and Catalan authorities has either been frozen or substantially reduced”, he explains.
Efficient management None of all this would be possible without the good management that UPF’s Research Service is tasked with providing. “We offer researchers advice on and help with identifying the most appropriate sources of funding for their type of project, as well as support for writing up applications”, states Martín. “During the FP7 funding period, we introduced research promoters on each campus, specialists who are familiar with each area’s researchers”, adds Lozano. “They monitor calls for applications, encourage our research groups to respond to such calls, and help them to do so.” The Research Service also carries out activities for making researchers aware of the importance of actively seeking funding. “We work with different stakeholders, including the EC, the Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants, the Catalan business support agency ACC1Ó and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology to organize information days for letting researchers know about funding opportunities and reflecting on various initiatives”, says Martín. Such events have notably included ERCday in 2012 and a day on the Horizon 2020 research programme’s social sciences and humanities area in January this year. Additionally, the Research Service monitors each project’s progress. “We make sure deadlines are met and the necessary administrative procedures undertaken to ensure that negotiations are successful and projects can begin”, explains Martín. “We al-
September 2014
UPF’S RESULTS IN FP6 AND FP7
FP6 FP7
PROPOSALS SUBMITTED
PROJECTS FINANCED
SUCCESS RATE
FUNDING OBTAINED
270 676
41 145
15,19% 21,44%
€ 10.845.400 € 75.259.741
PROJECTS BY FP7 SPECIFIC PROGRAMME SPECIFIC PROGRAMME
NUMBER OF PROJECTS
Capacities Cooperation Ideas-ERC People
FUNDING OBTAINED
15 65 19 46
€ 3.584.648 € 26.735.247 € 34.120.035 € 10.819.811
PROJECTS BY UPF AREA AREA
Health and life sciences Social and human sciences Communication and IT Institutional (COFUND) Total
NUMBER
FUNDING
27 39 78 1 145
€ 13.553.440 € 15.707.284 € 43.805.841 € 2.193.175 € 75.259.741
TOTAL FUNDS OBTAINED BY SOURCE (in millions) TYPE OF BODY
2009
Catalan administration 9.790 Spanish administration 16.899 European administration 7.494 Businesses and institutions 9.460 Total 43.642 so provide management support for researchers for the entire duration of their project, keep track of finances and prepare documentation to justify expenditure.”
Horizon 2020: what lies ahead? Although some of the projects funded via FP7 will run until 2019, the programme is now over. UPF has therefore turned its attention to Horizon 2020, the EC’s new instrument for financing research and innovation, which, as Martín observes, “entails an evolution of FP7 and is divided into three separate sections, Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges”. The University is approaching Horizon 2020 “with a burning desire to keep on improving our success rate”, affirms Lozano. “We want this to be
2010
9.984 12.831 11.035 3.984 37.834
2011
8.248 11.921 12.076 5.851 38.097
2012
2013
6.785 6.345 8.861 5.107 12.063 18.544 4.833 3.949 32.543 33.946
the framework programme that consolidates UPF’s position in the Champions League of research”, he remarks. At the same time, the institution is aware of the challenges it faces. According to Posas, they consist of “retaining our finest researchers against a backdrop of extreme competition from universities and centres with greater resources, in the USA and Asia as well as in Europe; and continuing to attract talent in a complex, changing environment”. At the moment, the highly competitive process triggered by the most recent call for applications for funding through the MINECO’s Networks and Operators programme has resulted in UPF obtaining over €160,000 “to develop a participation promotion strategy and support project proposals geared to Horizon 2020”, reports Martín.
September 2014
FOUR OF UPF’S FP7 PROJECTS
LEAP The LEAP (Learning of Archaeology through Presence) project is being led by Laia Pujol, under the supervision of Sandra Montón, an ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) research professor from the Department of Humanities. A beneficiary of the Marie Curie grant programme, LEAP accomplished a rare feat in obtaining 100 points, the highest score possible, in the application process. That is testimony to the quality of Pujol’s research, although it also places her under a degree of extra pressure, “as the score will have generated great expectations at different levels and meeting them won’t be easy”, she remarks. LEAP is a multidisciplinary initiative for “proposing a theoretical and methodological framework for the new field of knowledge called virtual archaeology, with a view to improving 3D reconstructions to aid our understanding of the societies of the past”, Pujol explains. She is in no doubt as to the direction she wants to take in the future. “I’d like to continue developing and consolidating LEAP’s results, and to contribute to Catalonia gaining a firm foothold in virtual heritage’s international arena.”
·From the campus·
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PRIMATESVs
CompMusic
IMPART
Tomàs Marquès-Bonet is currently an ICREA researcher and leader of the Comparative Genomics Research Group at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (established by the Spanish National Research Council and UPF). In 2010, he obtained an ERC Starting Grant to “characterize genomic variation in great apes, such as chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, with the aim of contextualizing the genetic variability we see in humans today”. Since then, he has led and participated in various studies that have had a worldwide impact in scientific circles. As the head of an international team that has sequenced the genomes of many individuals from the six great ape species of Africa and Southeast Asia, he published the project’s main findings in the Nature journal last year. “My work clearly falls into the category of basic research, but the studies involved could further knowledge of diseases that only affect human beings”, he explains. Recognition in the form of an ERC grant “entails a local change because it lets you bring your conditions into line with those of researchers working in countries where there are funding opportunities, such as the starting packages American universities provide”, he states. “When your funding runs out, you have to adapt to your new, modest research conditions, which means disbanding the group you’ve established”, he adds.
“The project’s aim is to develop technologies for analysing and structuring musical information, particularly recordings and metadata”, says Xavier Serra, head of the Music Technology Research Group of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC), which received an ERC Advanced Grant in 2010. CompMusic has a major cultural aspect. “We want new technologies to aid understanding of nonwestern musical traditions, specifically Hindustani and Carnatic music from northern and southern India respectively, Turkish makam music, Arab-Andalusian music from the Maghreb, and Beijing opera”, explains Serra. To that end, his team is developing a web-based platform called Dunya, “via which it’ll be possible to explore collections of music from the five traditions we’re studying”. Obtaining funding through FP7’s Ideas-ERC programme represents “a fantastic opportunity to carry out an ambitious research project bound by very few constraints, and recognition that opens numerous doors to a high-level academic career”, affirms Serra. “The distinction has contributed to the recognition of the academic field of music technologies, not just of my particular project”, he adds.
“The film industry has evolved rapidly in the last 25 years, switching from analogue to digital technology, and is now facing an explosion in terms of the volume, variety and complexity of data”, says Josep Blat, head of the DTIC’s Interactive Technologies Research Group (GTI), which is carrying out the IMPART project. “We’re researching and developing smart solutions to make interpreting, integrating and simplifying this vast, diverse quantity of data not only easier but also possible in real time, as well as to extend its creative use.” The GTI is coordinating the project, whose other participants include universities from the Czech Republic, the UK and Greece, as well as leading audiovisual sector firms. According to Blat, “fruitful cooperation between universities and businesses requires the two collectives to share certain objectives”. He goes on to declare that “there needs to be an increase in both the quantity and quality of such cooperative arrangements if a country is to have a prominent international role”. While being IMPART’s coordinating group involves “major responsibility”, Blat points out that “it is tremendously enriching to be participating directly, and in a privileged role, in the transition to digital cinematography”. In that regard, “we have to drive and stimulate cooperative research and development to obtain innovative, applicable results that are better than those we’d achieve individually”, he remarks.
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·Key figures·
September 2014
M. Teresa Cabré Emeritus professor at UPF
“If Catalan remains a linguistic reference point and retains its prestige, there’s very little chance of it faltering” MARIA TERESA CABRÉ CASTELLVÍ
was appointed president of the Philological Section of the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC) in July 2014, becoming the first woman to hold the position in question in the centuryold institution. At UPF, she will be coordinating the Pompeu Fabra chair project.
— What role does the IEC’s Philological Section play? — The Philological Section is the Catalan language academy, in that it produces prescriptive works on the language. When the IEC was founded, back in the days of Prat de la Riba, the idea was to create an institution that would cover all areas of knowledge, one that would therefore not only regulate Catalan but also promote research in the different fields of science and technology. That was the backdrop against which the Philological Section came into being. Unlike the IEC’s other sections, it has a dual role. On the one hand, it carries out linguistic research. On the other, it establishes the Catalan language’s rules, which are approved and disseminated by the IEC as a whole.
— What projects is the Philological Section currently working on? — There are our main projects - those related to regulating the language - and
then there are our scientific projects, owing to our dual responsibility. One of our regulatory projects is a grammar, which ought to be ready in 2015. It’ll be very flexible and should give rise to another one, mainly aimed at teachers and pupils, which will be much more specific and precise. We’re also designing a new prescriptive dictionary, the first that won’t be based on its predecessors. It’ll be newly written and will look at the language’s uses in great depth. Our other regulatory projects include the lexis of the oral standard; a new edition of the orthographic rules, incorporating new aspects from recent years; and developing Catalan Sign Language. Our research projects notably include a linguistic atlas and updating the written corpus of the Catalan language.
— What does the last project you mentioned involve? — A text corpus is a structured collection of real oral or written texts. The IEC already has a text corpus, but its most recent content is from 1990 and the language has changed considerably since then. It’s very important to bring the language in the corpus up to date to provide a basis for our prescriptive documents. You could hardly produce a prescriptive dictionary based on real uses without sufficiently reliable material on them. Those uses will inform the decisions that’ll subsequently shape the rules.
— How important is knowledge of Catalan in the education arena? — Many people don’t realize that thought is structured through language. Failure to master our languages, whether Catalan or Spanish, is a serious shortcoming, one that can have major repercussions if it’s present from an early age.
— Has Catalan lost ground in the last 25 years? — There’s no comparison between the situation in the 1980s and the way things are today, due to the surge in immigration, which has overwhelmed us all, and globalization, among other factors. There are now fewer people who say that their first language is Catalan, while the number of peo-
·Key figures·
September 2014
it faltering, no matter how much interference there may be.
— Given your position in the IEC, will you still be carrying out research at UPF? — I’ve taken a step back from the front line at UPF, but I’m still closely connected to the University. I’ll always have ties with my research group. I’m still working on a project on neologisms with the OBNEO, the Neology Observatory. It revolves around the difference between neologisms that arise in specialized discourse and those that appear in the press in general. When a new word is first used in scientific discourse, it can be a sign that new knowledge is emerging.
— What’s your opinion of the research performed at the IULA, the University Institute for Applied Linguistics?
Frederic Camallonga
ple who consider themselves bilingual has risen. Catalan hasn’t lost any of its prestige, but it has lost out where some areas of use are concerned. In the past, children who were taught in Catalan used the language in their social life, but it seems they no longer do so in many cases. There’s a kind of divide between Catalan as a language of schooling and education and as a social language. That’s serious and needs to be looked at.
— How do you see Catalan’s future? — The most important thing is for Catalan to remain a linguistic reference point for our society, or a sizeable part of society, and retain its prestige. If it can do so, there’s very little chance of
— The IULA is an institute that, in terms of subject matter, has become a model in Spain and some other countries. It has inspired the creation of two other institutes in Spain. It enjoys a great deal of international renown, especially in Europe and Latin America. What really appeals about the IULA is that it focuses on applied linguistics, geared to a particular idea, to a particular purpose or to resolving a particular situation related to information or communication, rather than on abstract linguistics or linguistic theory. I actually joined UPF from the University of Barcelona in 1994 to set up the IULA and I’m very satisfied with it.
— What does the Pompeu Fabra chair project entail? — It’s a proposal that Jaume Casals, the rector, included in his election campaign. Its aim is to raise the profile, both internally and in society, of UPF’s Commitment to the Catalan language, culture and identity. With the cooperation of the IEC and the Catalan government’s Ministry of Culture, it should be a means of presenting UPF’s ideas on, knowledge of and research into Catalan outside the University and, if possible, of offering all that to society as a service.
upf.edu 09
LIKES ... l A COMPOSER l
Malher.
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I can’t pick just one... Let me give you a few names. As far as Catalan writers are concerned, Maria Àngels Anglada, Jaume Cabré and Maria Barbal. Among non-Catalans, Magda Szabó and Agota Kristof, both of whom are Hungarian.
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Loyalty, without a shadow of a doubt.
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Opaqueness and irrational points of view.
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FURTHER INFORMATION
Academic career highlights She has been a professor of Catalan Philology since 1989, and lectured at the University of Barcelona until 1994, the year in which she joined UPF. At UPF she has been vice-rector for Research (1996-1999), director of the IULA (1994-2005) and leader of the IULATERM research group (since 1994). She has been a member of the IEC since 1990, and directed its Lexicography Department (19921995). She participated in the creation of the Catalan Language Terminology Centre (TERMCAT) and was its first director (19851988). She coordinated the work involved in producing the first edition of the IEC’s Dictionary of the Catalan Language (19901995). She has received the Narcís Monturiol Medal for scientific merit and the Eugen Wüster International Terminology Award, and is a doctor honoris causa of Ricardo Palma University in Lima. l
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·In depth·
10 upf.edu
September 2014
Beyond the classroom Student and graduate job placement is a priority for UPF, one to which it devotes effort and resources, due to its awareness that the way people seek work is changing A total of 25% of UPF students have found work through the institution itself, according to the 5th Catalan University Job Placement Study, which was carried out by the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU), with the cooperation of the corresponding universities’ boards of trustees, and presented in July. The figure in question is six points higher than the Catalan university system’s average. “UPF attaches a great deal of importance to job placement”, says Mònica Figueras, vice-rector for Social Responsibility and Promotion. “It’s an aspect we’ve strengthened in recent years by centralizing its management through the Professional Career Service, as well as by allocating more resources to improving relations with students and graduates and to making our interaction and communication with businesses and institutions smoother”, she explains. The Professional Career service “manages the job bank and academic internships, in close collaboration with the different faculties and departments”, she adds.
Academic internships: a key element “It’s a fact that students who’ve been interns in companies find work more
easily than those who haven’t”, remarks Teresa Monllau, vice-dean of Economics and internship coordinator for the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences. “That’s why we do everything we can to make it possible for them to carry out internships, whether in Spain or abroad.” Internships have a very significant role, because “a real professional environment has a range of added values to offer students, such as learning about and developing forms of behaviour related to workplaces, finding out about new ways to do the job they’re training for, and discovering interesting careers or positions they didn’t know existed”, states Mireia Trenchs, vice-rector for Teaching and Academic Planning. Furthermore, such experiences “reinforce what they’ve learned and give them a degree of confidence in their own capabilities”, she says.
Satisfied hosts The results obtained are positive, and not only quantitatively speaking. The businesses and institutions that host interns from UPF look upon the programme favourably. Joan Milà is human resources manager at Baker & McKenzie, a company that affirms
INTERNSHIP AGREEMENTS AND OFFERS MANAGED 2010-2011 Bachelor’s degree 661 Master’s degree 39 PhD 9 Internship offers handled 989 University-company framework agreements* –
2011-2012 715 31 20 966
2012-2013** 1.569 246 23 2.245
2013-2014 2.605 419 29 4.247
–
1.053
861
*Framework agreements are signed once only and tacitly renewed **Academic year in which management was centralized through the Professional Career Service
that 60% of the students it takes on are from UPF. In his words, “they arrive with sound academic training, a good command of English and other languages, a desire to be part of a global set-up, and commitment to our philosophy and values”. To date, over a thousand businesses and institutions have opened their doors to interns from UPF. They regard such arrangements as important because “they’re the best source of talent”, according to Milà. “There’s no better selection process than spending a few months with students while they train, learn and work”, he says. “We recruit more and more of our lawyers from the students we choose to carry out internships here.” Data from post-internship evaluation questionnaires shows that 16% of host companies have offered a student a job at the end of their time as
September 2014
·In depth·
upf.edu 11
Creating a UPF network Meritxell Tarrés, human resources manager at the estate agency Lucas Fox, has created a virtuous circle. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Translation and Interpreting from UPF, she was appointed to a position of responsibility within the company, recruited three of the University’s students to carry out academic internships, and ended up offering them jobs, which they accepted, at the end of their training period. Networking clearly works. Tarrés explains that encouraging students to seek work through university job banks has been standard practice for many years in the USA. It is now becoming crucial in Spain as well. As a student, Tarrés herself opted for an internship to complete her training. “I looked for a company related to my dissertation”, she remarks. She is proud “to be one of UPF’s alumni and in a position to offer opportunities to students who, as I did, are looking to get a first taste of working life”, she says. “I have first-hand knowledge of the rigour, standards and professionalism required of students - translation students in this case and that’s why I didn’t hesitate to contact UPF.”
Meritxell Tarrés, with Adrian Martínez, Jiayue Liang and Sara Blackshire. lucas fox
an intern, while 35% state that they will consider students for future vacancies. “This is the best way to strengthen UPF’s ties with the production sector, as organizing internships inevitably involves contact between the
University’s teaching and managerial staff and people from businesses and institutions; not only managers and executives, but also experienced workers who supervise students and have direct dealings with our internship tutors”, points out Trenchs. “Uni-
versities don’t operate in isolation”, adds Figueras. “They have to establish themselves as a vital part of contact with the labour market, bearing in mind the current economic context, which has changed the way people look for and find employment.”
Alfredo Sánchez AUDIOVISUAL COMMUNICATION INTERNSHIP AT OGILVY & MATHER
Mireia Capafons ECONOMICS INTERNSHIP AT SEAT
“Internships are essential for making the leap from academic to working life, something many students dread. They help you lose your fear of venturing out beyond the confines of your university.”
“I recommend an internship to everyone. It’s really useful for gaining both knowledge and contacts, and your host company might offer you the chance to carry on working there once you’ve got your degree.”
Ester Gallego HUMAN BIOLOGY INTERNSHIP AT THE DR. ANTONI ESTEVE FOUNDATION
STUDENTS’ VIEWS
“I think it’s the best way of building up experience in an authentic environment. It’s a chance to find out what aspects of work appeal to you most, which helps you decide on the direction you want to take your career in.”
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·Community·
September 2014
From left to right: Mireia Calm, Jordi Serret and Cristina Chiva. Frederic Camallonga
Erasmus grants for service and administrative staff: first-rate training Erasmus European mobility grants for service and administrative staff, which UPF has been offering since the academic year 20132014, combine professional development and internationalization “It’s highly recommendable and beneficial for your workplace.” That sentence sums up the views of the three members of service and administrative staff who, in the academic year 20132014, received UPF’s first Erasmus mobility grants geared to training for such employees. Staff in the category
in question had previously been left without the option of spending time training in foreign higher education institutions when the international mobility grant programme run by the Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) was suspended in 2011.
Josep Ferrer, vice-rector for International Relations, underlines how important it is that internationalization extend to each and every one of the groups that make up the University’s community. “Having our service and administrative staff gain firsthand experience of how other centres operate and draw comparisons with how we do things at UPF is very useful”, he says. “It can help us improve aspects of our management, particularly those most closely connected to our international dimension.” Ferrer also points out that such arrangements can have positive consequences at the institutional level. “Contact between members of service and administrative staff from different institutions is sometimes an important factor in generating the trust necessary for considering joint initiatives and establishing agreements involving, for example, student mobility, double degrees, multilateral academic programmes or research projects.” Pau Juste, the deputy general manager responsible for the Human Resources and Organization Area, emphasizes the purpose of the grants.
September 2014
“We want to offer service and administrative staff scope for professional improvement by paving the way for them to train abroad”, he states. “It’s a path that very few of them take and we think we’ve got a unique opportunity to align our aims related to internationalization and personal development”, he adds. “In the case of service and administrative staff, we have to overcome language barriers and encourage them to look beyond the functional, support-oriented nature of their job. Learning about international best practices can have a highly beneficial effect in terms of improving our organization.”
Three participants’ experiences Mireia Calm, technical coordinator for the management of multilingualism at the Centre for Teaching Quality and Innovation (CQUID), and Jordi Serret, quality and evaluation officer in the Studies, Planning and Evaluation Unit, were two of the successful applicants when UPF first offered the grants in the academic year 20132014. Calm undertook a training period at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, an opportunity that arose through a professional contact she had made at a conference. She feels that the knowledge she has acquired will serve her well. “My training period has provided me with a new perspective on university language policy and a new approach to managing multilingualism”, she says, before explaining that UPF needs to “develop strategies to consolidate its language model, based on a context of increasing internationalization and a multilingual university profile”. She has no hesitation in encouraging her colleagues to follow her example, with a few provisos. “I’d recommend the experience to other service and administrative staff, as long as their objective is very clear, their programme has been agreed upon and they have pre-established contacts, to ensure that they make the most of their training period and it meets their expectations.”
·Community·
Mireia Calm: “My training period has provided me with a new perspective on university language policy” Jordi Serret: “I’ve learned about different internal quality assurance systems for PhDs” Cristina Chiva: “We’ve been able to establish a cooperative relationship with a leading microfluidics group” Serret spent his training period in Denmark, in Aarhus University’s Talent and Research Unit and graduate schools, and the University of Copenhagen’s Health and Medical Sciences Graduate School. It gave him an insight into how the internal quality assurance systems the two universities apply to their PhDs are conceived and work. “I’ve come back with quite a few ideas, as we need to implement an equivalent system at UPF and we
upf.edu 13 don’t have a lot of experience in that regard”, he remarks. “It’s very interesting to see that there are other ways of working and tackling the same challenges, and to realize that we share many of the same problems”, he continues. “A training period gives you a more international profile and raises awareness of the work we do at UPF.” Cristina Chiva, a specialist from the Proteomics Service, also received a grant in the academic year 20132014, allowing her to spend time at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. She visited its microfluidics laboratory to weigh up the possibility of using the technology in question for proteomic sample preparation purposes. Her overall view of her training period is very positive. “It has benefited me in three ways”, she affirms. “As a life sciences professional, it has opened my eyes to another type of technology and its possible applications; as a member of the Proteomics Service, it has helped me strike up a cooperative relationship with a great deal of potential; and as a UPF employee, I’ve found getting to know another laboratory and different people enriching”, she explains.
More grants for 2014-2015 The importance UPF’s General Manager’s Office attributes to these grants is reflected by the fact that the total number available is set to rise to ten when this year’s call for applications is made (in the first term of 2014-2015, if all goes to plan). Each successful applicant will receive up to €1,200, jointly financed by the University and the Erasmus programme, to cover the cost of a 5-day training period and travel expenses. A selection committee chaired by the vice-rector for International Relations studies applications to determine how well they fit in with UPF’s strategies. Besides considerations such as language skills, the key aspect on which decisions are based is the degree of correspond-
ence between the proposed activity programme, the knowledge and skills the training period will provide, and the improvements their deployment in the applicant’s workplace will entail. Coordinated by the Development Section of the Human Resources and Organization Area, in conjunction with the International Relations Service, calls for applications are open to all service and administrative staff who fulfil particular requisites. Applicants must describe a project and design a work programme tailored to their interests and job. Their proposals have to meet with the agreement of their host institution, which must be in a European country covered by the Erasmus programme.
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·In depth·
September 2014
Arcadi Navarro
PROFESSOR OF GENETICS AND DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES AT UPF
“It’s thrilling that goodwill can make achievements like establishing the EGA in Barcelona possible” Arcadi Navarro cuartiellas
is an ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) research professor, director of the Evolutionary Genomics Research Group at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (established by the Spanish National Research Council and UPF), and a team leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG). He has been in charge of the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) project in Barcelona since 2013.
— What’s the EGA? — It’s a large archive of human genome data, mostly related to diseases. It was created by the European Bioinformatics Institute, or EBI, which operates from Hinxton in the UK. The archive contains the results of over 800 studies, giving it a volume of close to a million gigabytes and rising. It now has a centre in Barcelona, which is run by the CRG and provided with computing capacity by the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, or BSC. The EBI and a team that I direct manage the archive jointly.
— As a researcher, what does directing the project entail? — Dividing myself into lots of little pieces, learning amazing things and working with a fantastic team. First
and foremost though, it entails the satisfaction of contributing to the genomics and Big Data revolution. Secondly, it means being able to ask numerous questions that we simply couldn’t have contemplated asking just a short while ago.
— What scientific results can we expect from the EGA? — The data stored in the EGA makes it possible to carry out massive, comprehensive studies. We can expect, for example, to establish some surprising links between diseases.
— 200 data providers around the world, data from 100,000 people, a million gigabytes of information... We’re talking about a big project. — Regardless of how large the numbers involved at present might seem, it’s clear that this is only the beginning. The EGA is growing all the time. In a couple of years, it’s current content will look like next to nothing.
— Could it be said that it’s a good example of cooperation in the research arena? — Absolutely! It’s a project conceived both on the basis of and for collaboration. The scientists who generate the data make it available to the community so that other research groups can analyse it and publish their findings.
Additionally, the project itself and the process of establishing it in Barcelona constitute a clear example of how different research centres and universities can work together with a common goal. It’s thrilling that cooperation and goodwill can make achievements like this possible at a time of severe financial constraints.
·In depth·
September 2014
omedical research, cutting-edge genome research centres, and the great experience and capacity of the BSC, all in a relatively small space. It’s a rare combination.
— What role is UPF playing in the project? — UPF’s input consists of its extensive experience in genomics, databases and its teaching staff’s willingness to serve the public.
— More generally, what’s the situation with regard to research in Spain? — In Spain, research is three things: an anomaly, an example and a weakness. It’s an anomaly in a positive sense because it’s extraordinarily good, despite the current economic situation and the government’s deplorable science policy. It’s an example because there are few things that work as well as research, and that goes for Catalonia too. Maybe lessons could be learned as to how to improve other spheres in the country, from primary education to forestry and the police, by looking at how research has been improved over the last 20 years. In my view, by the way, the fact that governments of different political persuasions have shared objectives has been crucial. That generates very necessary stability. Lastly, I know it might seem paradoxical to say that research in Spain is a weakness, but I’m talking about the fragility of an anomalous system that’s highly dependent on the state. The higher you fly, the farther you can fall. The shortage of funding and Madrid’s bureaucratic hounding of researchers are negative forces that could bring the system down. Frederic Camallonga
— So, the city of Barcelona has become a reference point for science. Why was it chosen? — Actually, Barcelona has been a reference point for science for some time, especially in the case of genomics. Being entrusted with the joint management of the EGA merely confirms that. Barcelona boasts highly dynamic bi-
— What about UPF? What’s the situation here? — As a key part - an outstanding part even - of the system, UPF shares its characteristics and weaknesses. Maybe following the EGA’s example, i.e. cooperating, working together and making all our knowledge available, as households have traditionally done, we’ll overcome the difficulties we’re facing. It won’t be easy though.
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“The archive contains the results of over 800 studies, giving it a volume of close to a million gigabytes and rising” “Barcelona has been a reference point for science for some time, especially in the case of genomics” “In Spain, research is three things: an anomaly, an example and a weakness” “Cooperating, working together and making all our knowledge available, as households have traditionally done, we’ll overcome the difficulties we’re facing”
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·Online·
September 2014
PIPredictor,
a mathematical model that predicts whether or not a researcher will become a principal investigator How to measure the quality of science and scientists remains a bone of contention, and applications such as this one help stimulate the debate
In the famous Game of Thrones saga, a young Cersei Lannister visits a fortune teller to find out whether she will become queen. There are times when doctoral students who dream of reaching the top in their academic career would like to be able to turn to a fortune teller to discover what their future holds. Somewhere along the line, every young researcher wonders if they will ever be a principal investigator (PI) and what it takes to attain that status. Help is at hand. An international group of researchers has used a large database of scientific publications to develop PIPredictor, a mathemati-
The study reveals that perceived quality is more crucial than actual scientific quality cal model capable of predicting who will become a PI. PIPredictor is freely available online to any scientist interested in knowing what the future has in store for them. In the words of Lucas Carey, PI of the Single Cell Behavior Lab, which is attached to UPF’s Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, the
idea arose while he was “applying for positions in research groups and developing methods for understanding complex processes with huge quantities of data”.
What determines the success or failure of a career in science? To better understand the nature of the selection process involved and identify the elements of an aspirant’s CV that are predictive of success or failure, PIPredictor’s creators entered thousands of scientists’ publication records into a computer. They have worked on the basis that the position of an individual’s name in a scientific article’s list of authors is a good indicator of their academic status, as research group leaders tend to appear at the end of such lists. The program that Carey has developed, together with Ohad Manor from the University of Washington in Seattle (USA) and David van Dijk from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot (Israel), has been able to deduce which of the scientists referred to in the previous paragraph have gone on to become PIs and which of them have not. At the same time, Carey, Manor and van Dijk have “learned” what type of CV (i.e. what kind of publica-
tion record) is associated with academic success.
Many aspire, few achieve “As in the case of people who dream of being king, there are many more doctoral students than academic vacancies”, Carey remarks. “That’s due to various factors, notably including the lack of funding for science at present and the fact that, like royals, leading scientists seldom voluntarily leave their job while they’re young”, he says. Consequently, less than 10% of doctoral students will eventually become PIs, making professional science “a highly competitive sphere”, as Carey acknowledges. “On average, there are an estimated 200 candidates for every vacancy, and it’s a committee that ends up deciding which of them will go on to lead their own group”, he observes.
September 2014
·Online·
upf.edu 17
THE RESEARCH TEAM Lucas carey
Lucas Carey is a PI at UPF, where he combines research on single-cell measurements with mathematical modelling to understand how the molecular mechanisms of regulatory processes determine stochastic phenotypes. David van Dijk
David van Dijk is a postdoctoral researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where he is studying how gene expression, at the singlecell level, is encoded in promoter DNA sequence. Ohad Manor
Lucas Carey, group leader of Single Cell Behavior Lab. frederic camallonga
Perceived vs actual scientific quality On the basis of nothing more than publication records, Carey, Manor and van Dijk have been able to make highly accurate predictions as to who will become a PI and how long they will take to do so. Their model’s predictions are merely indicative and suggest that other factors, such as personal contacts and social skills, could be important and correlated with climbing science’s career ladder. Their study has also revealed that the status of the journals in which scientists publish papers is much more important than the number of times their work is cited by others. In other words, perceived quality is more crucial than actual scientific quality.
searcher’s gender and the rank of the university at which they studied affect their career prospects. Unfortunately for all the “Cerseis” out there, it is clear that a man who has attended a high-ranking university not only boasts a quality CV, but also has a better chance of becoming a PI than a woman whose CV matches his in every respect. How to measure the quality of science and scientists remains a bone of contention. Applications such as PIPredictor, and the study from which it arose, undoubtedly help stimulate the debate, with the ultimate aim of making science and its academic institutions more transparent and productive, for the good of humankind.
Females’ chances of success are lower
FURTHER INFORMATION
The mathematical model has also been able to gauge the extent to which a re-
PIPredictor is available at www.pipredictor.com
Ohad Manor is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is developing computational tools for metagenomic data analysis.
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·News·
September 2014
Graduation ceremony
Students from the class of 2014 at their graduation ceremony. FREDERIC CAMALLONGA
The class of 2014 takes centre stage Some 2,000 under- and postgraduate students from the UPF class of 2014 celebrated their graduation on 4 and 5 July in the Roger de Llúria courtyard on the Ciutadella Campus, as their friends and families looked on. For the first time, the event took place over two days and both sets of students graduated together, having always done so separately in the past. The ceremony was made particularly special by the participation of the first graduates of the bachelor’s degree programme in Medicine, which UPF and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) teach jointly. The event comprised a total of six sessions (one undergraduate and one postgraduate session on the first day, and four undergraduate sessions on the second), which were presided over by Jaume Casals, UPF’s rector, accompanied by Núria Basi, chair of
the University’s Board of Trustees, and different vice-rectors and holders of academic posts. The graduation speeches were given by the UPF lecturers Josep Eladi Baños, Julia López, Albert Lamarca, Cristina Gelpí and Daniel Serra, and the UAB’s emeritus
The ceremony was made particularly special by the participation of the first graduates in Medicine lecturer Victòria Camps. The ceremony was led, meanwhile, by five journalists with ties to UPF, namely Txell Bonet (two sessions), Lluís Caelles, Begoña Grigelmo, Marta Vives and Carles Pérez. The rest of each session was taken up by performances by the UPF Choir, the screening of a commemorative video, and speeches by a stu-
dent on behalf of the class of 2014, a former UPF student, Núria Basi and Jaume Casals.
Hippocratic Oath On 28 June, the first graduates in Medicine attended a ceremony at which they took the Hippocratic Oath. The reading of the text was led by their patron, Dr. José Felipe Solsona Durán, a lecturer from the UAB’s Department of Medicine. Presented by Francisco Muñoz, a lecturer from UPF’s Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, the ceremony took place in the gardens of Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar. It was presided over by Ferran Sancho, rector of the UAB, Pelegrí Viader, UPF’s general secretary and acting rector, and Olga Pané, general manager of the Mar Health Park. The two universities’ deans and teaching coordinators were also in attendance.
·News·
September 2014
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Applications
UPF’s applicantto-place ratio stands at 2:1 again
Careers
Business Day launched The Poblenou Campus hosted the first Business Day, an event organized by the Professional Career Service and the UPF Alumni programme. Its aim was to bring students and graduates of the degree programmes taught on the campus, which correspond to the fields of communication and IT, into contact with well-known companies and bodies from the sector. Representatives of the approximately ten participating companies, including HewlettPackard, Ogilvy & Mather and Microsoft, mingled with students in the exhibition area, answering career-related questions and making a note of potential future employees. For the companies, this was a good way of getting to know the University’s emerging talent.
Complementary activities Various complementary activities took place throughout the day. They included round tables on entrepreneurship based on projects that have originated in UPF, talks on career paths, a video CV workshop, and corporate presentations, such as that which Google gave together with a workshop on creative thinking.
There has been a further rise in the number of students applying for places on UPF’s bachelor degree programmes as their first choice. The number of such applications is once again twice as high as the number of places available, in stark contrast to the situation of the Catalan public university system as a whole, with the average level of demand having fallen by almost four points. Additionally, according to application data for the academic year 2014-2015 (based on places allocated in June), UPF is, for the first time, Catalonia’s third-ranked university in absolute terms as far as prospective students’ first-choice destinations are concerned. This is an upward trend. Demand for places at UPF has increased by 42% since the academic year 2008-2009.
Excellent admission marks in social sciences UPF’s admission marks for its bachelor’s degree programmes in the social sciences field are the Catalan university system’s highest. Of particular note are its Philosophy, Politics and Economics (11.96), International Business Economics (11.94) and Journalism (11.55) programmes, along with its double degree programme in Law and either Business Management and Administration (BMA) or Economics (11.51). The admission mark applicable to Medicine (12.35), a bachelor’s degree programme that UPF and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) teach jointly, remains UPF’s highest and the Catalan system’s fourth-highest. EXCELLENT ADMISSION MARKS
Medicine (UPF & UAB) Philosophy, Politics & Economics Int. Business Economics Human Biology Journalism Law & BMA/Economics Advertising and Public Relations Audiovisual Communication Biomedical Engineering BMA Economics
12,35 11,96 11,94 11,71 11,55 11,51 11,28 11,19 11,17 10,86 10,15
Ricard Zapata-Barrero. upf Research
New method for identifying xenophobic political discourse Ricard Zapata-Barrero, director of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration (GRITIM) and a lecturer in UPF’s Department of Political and Social Sciences, and Gema Rubio Carbonero, another member of GRITIM, have introduced a tracking tool for measuring xenophobic tendencies in political parties’ discourse. The new tool is the fruit of a project funded by the Open Society Foundation. To put it to the test, the researchers have analysed the political discourse of six Catalan parties (CiU, ERC, ICV, PPC, PSC and PxC) in their programmes, in plenary sessions and in media interviews during electoral campaigns between 2007 and 2012.
A political construct A code of conduct that governs discursive behaviour is necessary because “xenophobia is more a political construct than a social one, and the root of the problem lies in the way parties talk about immigration”, according to Zapata-Barrero. “Cases in which discourse exceeds the limits of what’s tolerable in a democratic society must be detected”, he says.
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·News·
September 2014
Research
Causative factor in muscle degeneration in the ageing process identified Led by the ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) researcher Pura Muñoz, scientists from the Cell Biology Research Group, which is attached to UPF’s Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, have identified, for the first time, a physiological mechanism involved in the irreversible ageing process undergone by muscle stem cells in very old organisms. Specifically, they have discovered that muscle stem cells in aged mice lose their regenerative capacity due to the activation of a signalling pathway associated with cellular senescence, as a result of which such cells are no longer able to divide. Similar processes may also play a role in the muscle degeneration associated with advanced ageing in humans. The group’s study obtained funding from the 2011 Marató de TV3 event, which was geared to financing research on organ and tissue regeneration and transplants. The study’s results have been published in the online version of the renowned journal Nature.
Pura Muñoz. Maruxa Martínez/PRBB
Recognition
Brenner, moments after being made a doctor honoris causa. FREDERIC CAMALLONGA
Sydney Brenner: doctor honoris causa Sydney Brenner, Nobel Laureate UPF’s teaching and research staff, in Physiology or Medicine and restudents and holders of academic garded as one of the founding fathers or institutional posts. of modern biology, has been made a Professor Arcadi Navarro, didoctor honoris causa by UPF. He is rector of UPF’s Department of Exthe first scientist from the biomedical perimental and Health Sciences field upon whom the University has (CEXS), acted as the ceremony’s bestowed the title in question. patron. Miguel Beato, a researcher The ceremony to mark the honour at the Centre for Genomic Regulatook place at midday on 3 April in tion (CRG), and Fernando Girálthe auditorium of the dez and Jaume BerHe is the first Barcelona Biomedtranpetit, both of scientist from the ical Research Park whom are profes(PRBB) on the Mar sors in the CEXS, biomedical field Campus. It was preread encomiums to upon whom the sided over by Mireia Brenner. University has Trenchs, UPF’s actIn his accepting rector, accompabestowed the title ance speech, which nied by Francesc Pomet with great apsas, vice-rector for Science Policy, plause from the audience, Brenner and Pelegrí Viader, the University’s emphasized science’s long-term general secretary. importance as both a key to solvAlso in attendance were Jordi ing problems and the passion that Camí, general manager of the PRBB, ought to drive researchers. He also and Claudi Alsina, chair of the Inaffirmed that scientific research is teruniversity Council of Catalonia. the only means of solving the mysThey were joined by members of teries the future holds.
·News·
September 2014
Conxita Sabater and Sergi Aynó with Jaume Casals. upf Donations
The Library adds to its collection of publications The Library’s collection of publications has been boosted by two private donations of noteworthy works. The respective donors have signed agreements with Jaume Casals, UPF’s rector, to ratify their donations. On 11 April, the Aynó Sabater family donated over 2,000 volumes of monographs and material related to Tibetan Buddhism and culture, which have been added to the Dipòsit de les Aigües Library’s eastern studies collection. The works in question had previously belonged to the late Enric Aynó Sagols, and were gifted to UPF by his widow, Conxita Sabater, and their son, Sergi Aynó Sabater. Three days earlier, on 8 April, the retired doctor Josep Agustí Castellanos Bofarull presented UPF with his private collection of almost 600 works, which are mainly on internal medicine, his areas of specialization and the history of medicine. The collection will be identified as the “J.A. Castellanos Bofarull Donation” and kept in the Mar Campus Library.
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Talent
‘UPF Món’ Debates
Unprecedented sporting success
Democracy and the judiciary: the role of judges
UPF and its affiliated centres have ended the 2013-2014 sporting season on a high, having earned a total of seven Spanish University Championships medals, six more than in the previous year. In individual sports, UPF obtained two gold medals in taekwondo, thanks to Judith Baeta and Mario Escolano, who were chosen to participate in the martial art’s World University Championship; a silver medal in athletics, courtesy of Mar Mesa; and a bronze medal in golf and another in taekwondo, through Marta Trillo and Alejandro Juárez respectively. In team sports, the women’s futsal and 3x3 basketball teams both won bronze medals. As far as the Catalan University Championships are concerned, UPF came first in women’s futsal, women’s 7-a-side football, women’s beach football, men’s water polo and ultimate frisbee; second in women’s handball and men’s futsal; and third in mixed roller hockey and men’s beach football. In individual sports, UPF received ten medals in athletics, three in each of judo and the running league, two in each of taekwondo and karate, and one in each of golf, tennis, badminton and the marathon.
The topic of judges’ independence was the focus of this year’s ‘UPF Món’ Debate, the sixth in the series of lectures organized by the University’s Board of Trustees. The speakers at the event, which took place on 30 April on the Ciutadella Campus, were Javier Gómez Bermúdez, judge and former president of the Criminal Chamber of Spain’s National High Court, Mercè Caso Señal, senior judge of the courts of Barcelona, and Professor Josep M. Vilajosana, dean of UPF’s Faculty of Law. The session was inaugurated by Núria Basi, chair of the Board of Trustees, and brought to a close by Jaume Casals, UPF’s rector. It was moderated by Julia López, a professor at the University, and Milagros Pérez Oliva, a journalist and member of the Board of Trustees.
Gaining influence in society The ‘UPF Món’ Debates are open to the community and promote reflection on topical issues. Distinguished academics and professionals with connections to the subject matter dealt with participate in the events, which are an effective means of raising the profile of UPF’s activity and contribution to society.
The women’s futsal team: champions of Catalonia and third in Spain. upf
·News·
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September 2014
Recognition
Talent
Research
UPF obtains HR Excellence in Research accreditation
Winners of the award for the best app created during MWC Barcelona
Alleviating the symptoms of Parkinson’s
The European Commission has awarded UPF its international HR Excellence in Research accreditation. UPF is a trailblazer in Spain in that regard, being one of the country’s first two universities to receive such recognition. The accreditation represents acknowledgement of an institution’s commitment to implementing the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers in the human resources strategy it applies to its research staff. UPF deems the quality and wellbeing of its researchers key factors in its excellence as an institution. It is therefore committed to that excellence being reflected in recruitment at all levels, which entails offering researchers the best possible conditions for carrying out their work, in accordance with the principles of equal opportunities and the highest ethical standards, and in such a way as to ensure a balance between family and working life. On that basis, the University has carried out a project geared to research staff, with the aim of providing a research environment that attracts the finest researchers and generates worldclass results.
Polytechnic School students Quim Llimona and Marcel Farrés, who are taking the bachelor’s degree programme in Audiovisual Systems Engineering, and Miquel Tolosa and Adrià Garriga, who are studying for a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, won the Mobile World Congress (MWC) hackathon. To do so, they had to develop an app in 48 hours. The app they came up with is called Catch and Win. It works in the same way as a geocaching app, but involves using a GPS signal to track down other people rather than to search for hidden objects. Players earn points by meeting up with one another. The students also won an award for the best app developed via Intel’s XDK platform and Mashery API, the software resources they used to create Catch and Win.
An app with many possible uses Catch and Win was conceived as a platform for meeting people and making friends. The nature of the app means it also lends itself to advertising. Companies could use it to launch promotions, while clubs and bars could use it to organize games for breaking the ice between members of the public.
Joana Cabral and the ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) researcher Gustavo Deco, both of whom are members of the Center for Brain and Cognition and of the Computational Neuroscience Research Group of UPF’s Department of Information and Communication Technologies, have participated in a study which shows that long-term deep brain stimulation causes significant structural changes. Published in the journal PLOS ONE and carried out in conjunction with researchers from the University of Oxford, the study has identified changes in sensory-motor, prefrontal/ limbic and olfactory brain regions known to be affected by Parkinson’s Disease. Its results demonstrate that deep brain stimulation in patients with Parkinson’s leads to a cerebral reorganization that can alleviate the disease’s symptoms. Treatment based on longterm deep brain stimulation not only has restorative effects on structural connectivity, but also improves functional connectivity and neural plasticity in general. The study’s findings may help to identify the underlying mechanisms of deep brain stimulation.
From left to right: Marcel Farrés, Quim Llimona, Miquel Tolosa and Adrià Garriga. wipJam-MWC
·News·
September 2014
upf.edu 23
Rankings
UPF: the 13th-best young university in the world UPF has seen its position in a New European approach The European Union (EU) has this number of rankings improve in the year presented U-Multirank, a tool current academic year. The institufor evaluating and comparing the tion has risen 12 places to 13th spot in the latest Times Higher Education activity of over 850 higher educa100 Under 50 ranking, which idention institutions from 70 countries. tifies the world’s hundred best uni- U-Multirank works differently versities that are less than 50 years from traditional rankings in two old. Additionally, UPF is Spain’s fundamental respects. Firstly, it is most productive university accordthe user who chooses the criteria ing to various nationon the basis of which al rankings, including they want to draw UPF is Spain’s the U-Ranking, which most productive comparisons. Secis produced by the BBondly, the user thus university VA Foundation and the obtains selected uniValencian Institute of versities’ scores for Economic Research; the ranking of each criterion rather than a closed Spanish public universities’ research list of centres. When search results activity, published by researchers are limited to EU universities that from the University of Granada; and teach bachelor’s degree, master’s the findings of the IUNE Observatodegree and PhD programmes, UPF ry’s workgroup on the Spanish uniappears in 15th position out of a total of 478 universities. versity system.
Jaume Casals, UPF’s rector, during his visit to the new facilities. jordi pareto Inauguration
Restoration work on the Dr. Aiguader Building completed Almost six years after it began, the restoration of the Dr. Aiguader Building has been completed. The building is situated on the Mar University Campus, which UPF’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences shares with the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the Mar Nursing School (ESIM), an institution that has ties with the Mar Health Park and is affiliated to UPF. An inauguration ceremony for the building was held on 10 June in the Hospital del Mar’s Josep Marull room. It included various speeches and the screening of a video on the building’s history as a teaching centre, and was presided over by Jaume Casals and Ferran Sancho, rectors of UPF and the UAB respectively, and Josep M. Via, chairman of the Mar Health park. Prior to the ceremony, a group of VIPs were given a guided tour of the building’s facilities. The ceremony’s other attendees included Joaquim Gea, dean of UPF’s Faculty of Health and Life Sciences; Manuel Armengol, dean of the UAB’s Faculty of Medicine; Gerard Ardanuy, the city of Barcelona’s councillor for education and universities; and Raúl García and Albert Pineda, the architects behind the restoration work.
·Our Alumni· Elsa Artadi (Economics, 1998) The Catalan government’s director-general for Taxation and Gaming. Last year, her directorate-general organized and promoted the first-ever La Grossa de Cap d’Any draw
“Economics is a very open degree programme. It has a mathematical and more scientific side, and a more social side” — Why did you decide to study Economics?
falling heavily. We needed to take a risk or the situation would’ve become critical. A lottery such as La Grossa had always been a possibility, but the sales network lacked capillarity. The retail sector and necessity were the factors that gave us the final push.
— When I left school, I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to do. Economics seemed to be, and actually is, a very open degree programme. It has a mathematical and more scientific side, and a more social side. It’s also open in terms of potential careers. You can work in the private sector, universities or international institutions. I didn’t want to rule anything out.
— What happens to the draw’s profits?
— What made you choose a university as new as UPF? — Even back then, UPF had quality lecturers, many of whom are still linked to the University. Nonetheless, I was taking a risk. Being so new, nobody could guarantee what its future held. Happily, things went very well and today it’s a great university.
— What memories do you have of your time at UPF? — Almost everybody must find the years they spend studying for a degree to be the best of their life. It’s a time I have great memories of. You meet lots of people and discover new ideas, and you’re full of energy and ambition.
— Has the training you received contributed to your professional development? — Yes, it has been a platform that let me continue doing what I wanted. In my case, I carried on studying. The education I received was crucial, as was the help I got from my lecturers. I’m still in touch with them.
— You’ve taught at university. What are classes like from a lecturer’s perspective? — Very intense. Nobody realizes what it’s
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like until they’ve done it. We weren’t very aware of that as students, myself included. When I was teaching, I often remembered how lectures had seemed to me as a student and the things I used to discuss with my classmates, such as the questions that might or might not appear in an exam. The reality is a little different.
— This year’s La Grossa draw is getting closer. Are you happy with last year’s results? — We’ve been preparing the 2014 draw since 7 January. Last year was a fantastic experience. We learned a great deal and the hours of work we put in together strengthened the bonds in our team. In the end it went very well, better than we’d expected. Our original sales target was €10 million, but we topped €25 million.
— How did La Grossa come about? — Catalonia has had a public lottery since 1986. It has suffered considerably due to competition in recent years and sales were
— Since 1992, all Loteria de Catalunya’s profits go to programmes for helping three groups, namely children and teenagers; the elderly; and the handicapped. The Catalan government’s Ministry of Social Welfare and Family takes care of that. It’s an extra source of motivation for everyone who works at Loteria de Catalunya.
— What major new developments will there be this year? — This year we’ve concentrated on strengthening our marketing campaign. We started selling tickets earlier to make the most of the summer, and in September we’ll be launching online sales. We’ve also produced more series of each number. There’ll be 100 tickets for each number, so people can share them. We’ve added a fourth and a fifth prize, and there’ll be prizes for tickets whose first three digits match those of the numbers that win any of the five top prizes. All in all, the probability of winning a prize will be 20% higher. Another improvement is that it’s now possible to search for your favourite number and buy its tickets. A lot of people wanted to be able to do that last year, and now they can. We’re also organizing draws for the option of buying the tickets with the three most sought-after numbers, 91114, 02014 and 01714. The draw for the first of them, 91114, took place on 1 September.