Professor Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol, distinguished with an Academy of Excellence - ICREA 2025 grant

Mireia Fernández-Ardèvo, professor at the UOC's Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences, was one of 50 people selected by the Ministry of Research and Universities in the Government of Catalonia's new call for Academy of Excellence (previously ICREA Acadèmia) grants. These awards, endowed with a total of €10 million, are intended to strengthen and intensify research activity among teaching staff at Catalan universities.

"It's an honour to receive this award, which will allow us to strengthen a much-needed line of research into this new digital revolution of generative artificial intelligence," said Professor Fernández-Ardévol.

As a member of the Communication Networks and Social Change (CNSC) research group, affiliated to the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Social and Cultural Transformations (UOC-TRÀNSIC), Fernández-Ardèvol's research is centred on digital communication as a way to analyse social peripheries. She studies groups that are on the "edges" of hyperdigitalized society due to lack of resources, lack of representation or forced exclusion. The issue of socio-digital inequality is a key focus of her scientific work.

Her interests also include the critical analysis of hyperdatification and digital methodologies, examining the potential and limitations of big data-driven quantitative methods and the new peripheries they can create. She has also built up a solid body of international research at the intersection between digital communication and ageing. This is an emerging field that she has helped to define and promote, with a particular focus on specific forms of digital ageism and data-based ageism. Her research is aligned with the principles of the 2030 Agenda, especially with the commitment to "leave no one behind".

Academy of Excellence grants

The grants are intended for university teaching staff who are in a phase of scientific development. The annual endowment of €40,000 awarded to each recipient allows them to prioritize research over a five-year period.

Seven UOC researchers recognized

The selection of Fernández-Ardèvol brings the number of UOC researchers who have received ICREA grants from the Government of Catalonia in different categories to seven:

• 2024 ICREA Acadèmia grant: Begonya Enguix, expert in gender anthropology, and Joana Maria Pujadas, specialist in demographic and socioeconomic dynamics from a gender perspective (Faculty of Arts and Humanities).
• 2023 ICREA Acadèmia grant: Hug March, expert in sustainability and ecological transition (Faculty of Economics and Business).
• 2022 ICREA Acadèmia grant: Xavier Vilajosana, specialist in sensor networks and the Internet of Things and current vice rector for Research, Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship (Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications).
• 2021 ICREA Sènior: Diana Roig-Sanz, coordinator of the GlobaLS research group and researcher in global literature and cultural transfer (Faculty of Arts and Humanities).
• 2015 ICREA Sènior: Jordi Cabot, expert in systems and software engineering, currently a researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology.

More information:

Academy of Excellence programme, award of grants