Current events

The Selection Committee, formed by the professors Manuel Castells, Jaume Pagès and Rolf Tarrach, will present their proposals to the Board of Trustees, which will vote in plenary session to decide who will be appointed as the university’s highest academic authority for the next seven years, as established in FUOC Statutes. Ratification of this decision will then be sought from the Govern de la Generalitat (Government of Catalonia).

The new president must be a full university professor or academic of equivalent standing, have a distinguished career in academia and the international profile to match, and possess the necessary management experience. The president is the highest institutional representative of the UOC before society and is charged with ensuring the efficient and effective management of the university; maintaining and enhancing quality standards in teaching and research, to consolidate the UOC’s status as an institution built on excellence, talent attraction and innovation; maintaining and advancing the UOC’s position as a global leader in those areas encompassed by its institutional mission; and developing its role at the forefront of technology in higher education.

The UOC is a fully online university that was founded in 1995 by decree of the Parlament de Catalunya (Parliament of Catalonia). Its founding patrons are the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan Government), the Federació de Caixes d’Estalvi de Catalunya (Federation of Savings Banks of Catalonia) and the Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona (Barcelona Chamber of Commerce). From the moment of its creation, the UOC has pioneered the use of new information technologies as an integral component in fulfilling its mission. For the academic year 2010-2011, the UOC’s student population grew to over 60,000, and the university boasts 260 faculty members and more than 2,600 collaborating teachers, as well as extensive management staff.

Selection Committee

Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells is University Professor and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is the most cited and most prestigious academic in the world in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) and one of the most widely cited in the social sciences.
 

Profile

 

Jaume Pagès

The professional life of Jaume Pagès is inseparable from the Catalan university sector. Holder of a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Professor of Automatic Control at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UOC), he served as Vice-Rector of the UPC for eight years before becoming Rector for the period 1994-2002. He is currently Deputy Counsellor at Universia.
 

Profile

 

Rolf Tarrach

Professor of Theoretical Physics, President of the University of Luxembourg since 2005 and former President of the Spanish National Research Council (2000-2003). Holder of a doctorate from the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Tarrach was previously Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Universitat de València (UV) and the UB, where he has held a range of academic positions. He specialises in quantum field theory, elementary particle theory, quantum mechanics and quantum information theory.

Profile