Josep Laporte i Salas President of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans Former Minister for Health, Education and Universities (Autonomous Catalan Government) Born in Reus (Baix Camp) on March 18 1922. Married, with five children and thirteen grandchildren. He lives in Barcelona. He studied a degree in Medicine at the University of Barcelona (1939-45), where he was awarded his doctorate and was assistant professor in Pharmacology until 1967. Meanwhile, he completed his training at the Department of Pharmacology at Oxford (1962) and the Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, in Milan (1966). In 1967, he was awarded, having passed the corresponding examinations, the Chair in Pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine in Cadiz, which he held for two years. From there he was to hold the same chair at the University of Valencia and, subsequently, that in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the Faculty of Medicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), a university where he was to be elected rector in April 1976. As a pharmacologist, he has been a member of numerous scientific societies and the editorial boards of various specialised journals, both in Spain and abroad. Between 1949 and 1980, he published some 300 works as books, resulting from collaborations on general works, and numerous scientific journals on a range of subjects and, in particular, those related to the pharmacology of the vegetative nervous system, the thyroid hormonal system, the effects of drugs and side effects of medicines. In 1978, he was made a life member of Catalonia's Royal Academy of Medicine, of which he has also been the president (1993-2002). In 1978 he was elected deputy member and in 1980 life member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Institute of Catalan Studies, in the Biological Sciences Section), an institution which he has been the president of since 2002. He has also been the president of the Catalonia and Balearic Islands' Academy of Medical Sciences (1970-74), where he promoted the publishing of a collation of Catalan medical vocabulary. Without belonging to any political party, at the end of the Spanish dictatorship, he took part in various citizen movements and attended the meeting of the Assemblea de Catalunya (Assembly of Catalonia), in November 1971. In February of 1980, he left his position as rector of the UAB so as to be able to stand in the elections to the Catalan parliament. As an independent candidate, he formed a part of the Convergència i Unió coalition. He was elected as an MP and, on forming the government, the president Jordi Pujol named him Minister for Health and Social Security. He was re-elected in 1984 and continued, during this second term in office, in the same position in the government. His work at the head of the Health Department consisted, fundamentally, in introducing numerous health promotion measures and in reforming the primary healthcare network, above all, the hospitals, with the creation of the Institut Català de la Salut (Catalan Health Institute) and the construction or refurbishment of a great number of health centres. For the 1988 Catalan parliament elections, he stood as the CiU's leading candidate for Tarragona and, in the new government, formed in July, he went on to hold the position of Education Minister, whilst also being named chairman of the CIRIT (Interdepartmental Commission for Technological Research and Innovation). Whilst insisting on the standardisation of the language used in the education system, he also took an interest in improving vocational training, with a significant increase in the higher education studies on offer, thanks to the creation of new universities, and promoting research, through the Research plan 1992-1996. On leaving the position in December of 1992, he was named commissioner for Universities and Research, a role he undertook until February of 1995. He has been chairman of the Management Foundation Governing Board and a member of the Illustrious Administration at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (1995-2002). He is currently president of the Fortuny Theatre Foundation in Reus, a member of Catalonia's Interuniversity Council's General Conference and, as mentioned above, president of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.