New academic year officially underway

Ferran Sancho lliura la Medalla de la UAB a Ramon Pascual

The inauguration of the new academic year was held on 26 September at the Rectorate building and included the awarding of the UAB Medal to Dr Ramon Pascual.

26/09/2012

The event began with the reading of the 2011/12 Annual Report by Judith Solé, Secretary General of the UAB, who congratulated the university for its good results by stating that "although the economic circumstances are not helping, the UAB continues to improve". She also spoke on the former governing team, led by former rector Ana Ripoll, as being those "responsible for the practical totality of the results included in the Annual Report".
Judith Solé was also in charge of reading the agreement signed by the Governing Council conferring the Medal of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona toRamon Pascual de Sans. UAB's chair professor in Theoretical Physics, Antoni Méndez, spoke on the academic trajectory of Dr Pascual and following his speech, Rector Ferran Sancho awarded the medal to Dr Pascual amidst much applause.

Dr Ramon Pascual, chair professor of Theoretical Physics at UAB, member of the Institute of High Energy Physics, former Rector of the UAB and president of the Executive Committee of the Synchrotron Consortium, offered a master lecture on his years at the UAB, entitled "Els meus temps a la UAB". Dr Pascual said, "Since I retired as professor of the UAB ten days ago, I decided to speak on my professional life, not for the interest it may have, but for the relation it has with some of the important evolutions UAB and the campus have undergone". The former rector spoke on his arrival at UAB in 1972, "when I arrived as a student, construction on the C Towers had not finished yet", and on the years in which the campus grew and finally on the road that took the university to the creation of the ALBA Synchrotron, "at the UAB I've been able to develop professionally in these past twenty years". According to Dr Pascual, in addition to scientific interests, the construction of ALBA "represented placing a unique nucleus of knowledge in the field of accelerator technologies which we hope will continue to enrich the UAB and its surroundings in the following years".

After the master lecture, the UAB Choir performed a musical piece and several institutional speeches were made. Josep Escaich, member of the Board of Trustees of the UAB and in representation of Alícia Granados, President of the Board, congratulated the UAB for its results and encouraged it "to keep in mind its social responsibility as an important axis of its activities". Carme Carmona, Mayor of Cerdanyola, showed her "pride" in representing a "university, scientific, technological and innovative city", and stated that the UAB "can count on the city council as its partner for future projects", as well as "defend the model of a quality public university". Claudi Alsina, Secretary General of the Interuniversitary Council of Catalonia highlighted the need "to attract talent to Catalonia thanks to the quality of its universities", as well as "work further on collaborations between universities and businesses" with initiatives such as industrial PhD programmes.

This was the first inauguration of the academic year for Rector Ferran Sancho. He thanked Dr Pascual for his master lecture and congratulated him for his achievements as professor and administrator of the UAB, "an institutional leader of our university, an ideologist and one of the founding fathers of a strong and modern Department of Physics, rector during four years and a model of unstoppable academic and institutional drive", Sancho affirmed.
Rector Sancho began his speech affirming that UAB had done a good job this year, as demonstrated by the recent QS ranking where UAB ranked first in universities in Spain, "proof that we have done a good job". Rector Sancho made it clear however that the work carried out was not done under normal conditions or the desirable economic stability, "the UAB has suffered financially" in a worrisome situation resulting from "the destructive economic crisis as well as the problems with our government, which cannot cover the debts it has with us". Just as badly he considered the social mobility of higher education as suffering under the "increase of university fees, which can become a de facto impediment for the more fragile social sectors".
On the future of the UAB, the rector defended specific and distinctive characteristics defining the university's project: a campus university "which strengthens our ties with our surroundings, key for scientific interdisciplinarity", a university with international vocation, "one of the key aspects valued by rankings", a university of research "although unfortunately our state government limits our strive for cutting-edge research", and a "fully autonomous university". On this aspect, Rector Sancho made it clear that "it is our obligation to explain to society that the confidence they have deposited in us as a higher education and research institute is in very responsible hands" but that "we must not forget that interventionism is the antithesis of an autonomous university. The two concepts are incompatible".
Rector Ferran Sancho ended by reminding attendants that "we remain the heirs of the Manifest of Bellaterra, the first institutional expression of an inalienable mission to create and maintain a scientific and democratic university, based on Catalan values".

Finally the event ended with the UAB Choir, directed by Poire Vallvé, who performed the traditional university hymn Gaudeamus igitur.

Speech of Rector Ferran Sancho at the inauguration of the 2012/13 academic year.