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Pompeu Fabra University
University in Barcelona, Spain From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Pompeu Fabra University (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF; pronounced [univəɾsiˈtat‿pumˈpɛw ˈfaβɾə]; Spanish: Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Established in 1990 by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, the university is named after renowned Catalan philologist Pompeu Fabra. UPF is recognized for its academic excellence, strong research output, and commitment to innovation in higher education.[4]
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UPF has consistently ranked among the top universities in Spain, earning the title of the best university in the country since 2015. It also ranked 16th among the world’s best young universities in 2022, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The university is especially known for its selective admissions process and academic rigor, with many programs requiring high entrance scores.[5]
UPF excels in the fields of economics, political science, and law, with its Economics program ranked among the global top 50. The Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences is the only faculty in Spain to have received the Certificate for Quality in Internationalization. In recognition of its growing academic prestige, UPF was designated as an "International Excellence Campus" by the Spanish Ministry of Education in 2010.
The university maintains a strong international orientation, offering numerous English-taught programs, joint degrees, and partnerships with prestigious institutions such as Sciences Po, LSE, and UCLA. Its urban campus in Barcelona offers access to vibrant cultural life and industry connections, particularly in the fields of media, technology, and biomedical research.
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Campuses
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The university offers its studies around three areas of knowledge, each one developed on a different campus:
- the social sciences and humanities (Citadels Campus, next to Parc de la Ciutadella)
- the health and life sciences (Mar Campus, next to the Port Olímpic)
- the ICT and communication sciences (Poblenou Campus, next to the Can Framis Museum)
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Teaching
Specifically, teaching is organized in seven faculties and one engineering school:
- Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
- Faculty of Economics and Business
- Faculty of Political and Social Sciences
- Faculty of Communication
- Faculty of Law
- Faculty of Humanities
- Faculty of Translation and Language Sciences
- Engineering School
Higher education affiliated centers
Finally, the university also has several higher education affiliated centers:
- Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)
- Tecnocampus
- UPF Barcelona School of Management
- International Trade Business School (ESCI)
- Mar University School of Nursing (ESIM)
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Research
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Research is organized in eight departments:
- Department of Experimental and Health Sciences
- Department of Political and Social Sciences
- Department of Communication
- Department of Law
- Department of Economics and Business
- Department of Humanities
- Department of Information and Communications Technologies
- Department of Translation and Language Sciences
Moreover, in order to promote research and transfer activities undertaken by university researchers and provide them with greater international visibility, the university is developing the UPF Research Park in the fields of social sciences, humanities, communication and information technologies. The UPF Research Park, which develops its activity at Ciutadella and Poblenou Campuses, coordinates its activities in the fields of health and life sciences with the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), located at Mar Campus.
University institutes and research centres
- Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) (interuniversity research institute)
- UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics (UPF-CAE) (think tank)
- Institut Universitari de Cultura (IUC) (research institute)
- Music Technology Group (MTG) (research group)
- Science Communication Observatory (OCC) (special research centre)
- Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) (attached research university institute)
- Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) (attached research university institute)
- Barcelona School of Economics (BSE) (attached research university institute)
- Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) (attached research university institute)
- Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) (joint research institute)
- Research Centre for International Economics (CREI) (participated research centre)
- Institute for Political Economy and Governance (IPEG) (participated research centre)
- BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Center (participated research centre)
- Phonos Foundation (associated research centre)
Research Centre for International Economics
The Research Centre for International Economics (Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI)) is a research institute sponsored by the government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya) and the UPF led by the economist Jordi Galí. Its headquarters is on the campus of UPF in Barcelona, near the Department of Economics and Business at UPF (Ciutadella Campus), which collaborates in many research and teaching fields.
The research activities are focused on international economics and macroeconomics (including growth, business cycles, monetary economics, macroeconometrics, trade and international finance, economic geography, etc.). It tries to emphasize these fields of studies in the European dimension.
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Governance
Enric Argullol served as rector from the founding until June 2001, followed by M. Rosa Virós i Galtier (2001–2005), Josep Joan Moreso (2005–2013), Jaume Casals (2013–2021) and Oriol Amat (2021–2023). The current rector, Laia de Nadal, was elected in May 2023.[6]
Rankings
The position of UPF is presented in the following international rankings: Times Higher Education (THE), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the one published by Shanghai University (ARWU) Archived 11 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine, U-Multirank (promoted by the EU), and the Leiden ranking, which is focused on research.
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Notable alumni
- Rita Almeida, economist
- Pol Antràs, economist and professor at Harvard
- Elsa Artadi, economist, academic and politician
- Meritxell Batet, jurist and politician
- Javier Beltrán, film and theatre actor
- Genís Boadella, lawyer and politician
- David Bonneville, London-based filmmaker
- Gloria Aura Bortolini; journalist, photographer and filmmaker
- Antonio Briceño, photographer
- Javier Calvo, writer
- Diego Comin, economist
- Lluís Galter, cinema director
- Berta García Faet, poet, translator, and scholar of Hispanic literature
- Teresa Garcia‑Milà, professor of economics at UPF and director of the Barcelona School of Economics
- Uri Giné, musician
- Míriam Hatibi, data analyst and activist
- Joan Herrera i Torres, lawyer and politician
- Teresa Colom i Pich, poet and novelist
- Tatiana Huezo, film director of Salvadoran and Mexican nationality
- Kenmochi Hideki, inventor of Vocaloid
- Isaki Lacuesta, film director
- Oliver Laxe, film director, screenwriter and actor
- Núria Mas, economist, professor at IESE and counselor to Banco de España
- Andreu Mas-Colell, economist, former UPF professor, Catalan government minister
- Sergi Miquel, politician
- Carles Mundó, lawyer and politician
- Neus Munté, politician
- Jordi Nadal (1929–2020), economist and historian, taught at UPF, awarded doctor honoris causa by UPF
- Mónica Ojeda, Ecuadorian writer
- Martha Lucía Ospina Martínez, first woman director of Colombia's Instituto Nacional de Salud
- Marta Pascal, politician
- Marta Rosique, politician
- Gabriel Rufián, politician
- Sandra Sabatés, journalist
- Xavier Serra, founder of UPF’s Music Technology Group
- Uwe Sunde, German economist
- Roger Torrent, politician and urban planner
- Nicole Vanden Broeck, filmmaker
- Mireia Vehí, sociologist and politician
- Alexia Putellas, professional footballer
- Valeria Zalaquett, Chilean photographer and portraitist
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Notable faculty
- Josep Acebillo, research professor in architecture, former city planner of Barcelona; RIBA Gold Medalist
- Gøsta Esping-Andersen, sociologist
- Maria Teresa Cabré, linguist
- Jaume Casals, philosopher
- Guillem López Casasnovas, economist
- Joan Codina, professor in ICT; research in AI, speech and language processing
- Teun A. van Dijk, linguist
- Jordi Galí, economist
- Xavier Freixas, economist
- Antoni Ivorra, associate professor in biomedical electronics; neuroprosthetics, ERC consolidator grant
- Sergi Jordà, music technology scholar
- Jorge Lobo, professor in ICT; wireless sensor networks, Java programming
- Xavier Cuadras-Morató, professor in Economics & Business; expertise in banking and international economics
- Josep Joan Moreso, legal scholar
- Vicenç Navarro, sociologist
- Javier Díaz Noci, digital journalism researcher
- Xavier Sala-i-Martin, economist
- Andreu Mas-Colell, economist
- Eugenio Trías Sagnier, philosopher
- Xavier Serra, music technology scholar
- Paul Verschure, cognitive systems and neuro-robotics
- Ricardo Baeza-Yates, computer scientist
- Ricard Zapata-Barrero, full professor of migration studies; director of GRITIM-UPF interdisciplinary research group
- Lydia Zimmermann, filmmaker
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References
External links
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