New ICTA-UAB Ombudsman, Dr Josep Enric Llebot
Since last October, Dr. Josep Enric Llebot has been the new ICTA-UAB Ombudsman Officer, a new position created in the Institute with the aim of receiving and evaluating complaints and observations made on the functioning of the Institute, in order to decide whether to follow up with legal procedures.
The ICTA-UAB Ombudsman Officer, elected by absolute majority of the ICTA-UAB Council and appointed by the Rector, Javier Lafuente, is responsible to guarantee the abidance of all that which is laid down in the UAB Statutes, and to present non-binding resolution proposals to the competent bodies on issues submitted to them.
The ICTA-UAB Ombudsman carries out his duties independently and with objectivity. He is in no way subject to an imperative mandate, nor do they receive instructions from any authorities, and they act with autonomy and in accordance to their own criteria, as laid down in the ICTA-UAB Statutes.
The representative of this position must be a person of recognized prestige and, to avoid any conflict of interest, must not have any active research or postgraduate training activity connected with ICTA-UAB. The ombuds officer holds office for four years and may be reelected only once.
Llebot is Full Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the UAB and has worked mainly in areas related to thermodynamics, environmental physics and climate change, a subject on which he has coordinated two studies in Catalonia. He has been Dean of the Faculty of Science and Vice-Rector for Economic Policy and Organisation at the UAB, as well as Secretary for the Environment and Sustainability in the Catalan Government. He is a member of the Institute of Catalan Studies and has received the Fundació Enciclopèdia Catalana prize for scientific research and the Prat de la Riba prize from the Institute of Catalan Studies. He was awarded the Cross of Saint George by the Generalitat de Catalunya (2016).