elButlletí

A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya

83

October 2016

The president and the director of AQU Catalunya, Josep Joan Moreso and Martí Casadesús, attended the official inaugural ceremony of the 2016-2017 academic year held at the University of Barcelona/UB's Edifici Històric (Paranimf Hall) on 7 September. The event, which was chaired by the President of the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya), Carles Puigdemont, together with the UB Rector Dídac Ramírez and the Acting Chair of the university’s Social Council, Joan Corominas, was also attended, amongst others, by the Minister for Enterprise and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, the Secretary for Universities and Research, Arcadi Navarro, and rectors and former rectors from other universities in Catalonia. The keynote lecture, titled "Medicine and literature, a de facto union", was given by Amàlia Lafuente, Chair of the UB’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

During the ceremony, Carles Puigdemont spoke of the powers over universities transferred to the Government of Catalonia’s Executive Council during the last thirty years and acknowledged the work done by the universities. He pointed out in particular the big increase in this period in the number of universities (from three to twelve), students (from 120,000 to 250,000), teaching staff at public universities (from 6,000 to 16,000), the number of doctoral theses read each year (from 300 to 2,000) and the average investment per student (from 4,000 to 10,000 euros). The UB Rector, Dídac Ramírez, underlined the importance of Catalan universities in terms of research, recognised teaching quality and their role in safeguarding the progress of society in the future.