Pompeu Fabra University (, ; ) is a

public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

located in the city of

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. Established in 1990 by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia and named after

Pompeu Fabra Pompeu Fabra i Poch (; Gràcia, Barcelona, 20 February 1868 – Prada de Conflent, 25 December 1948) was a Catalan engineer and grammarian. He was the main author of the normative reform of contemporary Catalan language, and is the namesa ...

, it is known for its competitiveness in research and commitment to transforming education for future challenges. UPF has been recognized as the best university in Spain since 2015 and was ranked the 16th best young university globally in 2022 by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. It is known for its academic prestige and selective admissions, with many of its degree programs requiring high entrance grades. The university excels in economics, political science, and law, with its Economics program ranked among the top 50 worldwide. The Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences is the only faculty in Spain to receive the Certificate for Quality in Internationalization. In 2010, UPF was designated an "International Excellence Campus" by the Spanish Ministry of Education.

Campuses

The university offers its studies around three areas of knowledge, each one developed on a different campus: * the social sciences and humanities (Citadels Campus, next to Parc de la Ciutadella) * the health and life sciences (Mar Campus, next to the Port Olímpic) * the ICT and communication sciences (Poblenou Campus, next to the

Can Framis Museum Can Framis is the latest Fundació Vila Casas museum, an art center in Barcelona devoted to the promotion of contemporary Catalan painting. Located in the old Can Framis factory complex, the museum displays more than 250 paintings from the sixtie ...

)

Teaching

Specifically, teaching is organized in seven faculties and one engineering school: * Faculty of Health and Life Sciences * Faculty of Economics and Business * Faculty of Political and Social Sciences * Faculty of Communication * Faculty of Law * Faculty of Humanities * Faculty of Translation and Language Sciences * Engineering School

Higher education affiliated centers

Finally, the university also has several higher education affiliated centers: *

Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

(IBEI) * Tecnocampus * UPF Barcelona School of Management * International Trade Business School (ESCI) * Mar University School of Nursing (ESIM)

Research

Research is organized in eight departments: * Department of Experimental and Health Sciences * Department of Political and Social Sciences * Department of Communication * Department of Law * Department of Economics and Business * Department of Humanities * Department of Information and Communications Technologies * Department of Translation and Language Sciences Moreover, in order to promote research and transfer activities undertaken by university researchers and provide them with greater international visibility, the university is developing the UPF Research Park in the fields of social sciences, humanities, communication and information technologies. The UPF Research Park, which develops its activity at Ciutadella and Poblenou Campuses, coordinates its activities in the fields of health and life sciences with the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), located at Mar Campus.

University institutes and research centres

(IBEI) ''(interuniversity research institute)'' * UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics (UPF-CAE) ''(think tank)'' *

Institut Universitari de Cultura Institut Universitari de Cultura (), also known by the acronym IUC, is a school belonging to Pompeu Fabra University, in Barcelona. It was created in 1994 in order to promote interdisciplinary cultural research in the fields of art, philosophy and l ...

(IUC) ''(research institute)'' *

Music Technology Group The Music Technology Group (MTG) is a research group of thDepartment of Information and Communication Technologiesof the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital ...

(MTG) ''(research group)'' *

Science Communication Observatory The Science Communication Observatory (, , OCC) is a Special Research Centre attached to the Department of Communication of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, set up in 1994. This centre is specialized in the study and analysis of the ...

(OCC) ''(special research centre)'' * Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) ''(attached research university institute)'' *

Centre for Genomic Regulation The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG, ''Centre de Regulació Genòmica'' in Catalan) is a biomedical and genomics research centre based in Barcelona. Most of its facilities and laboratories are located in the Barcelona Biomedical Research Par ...

(CRG) ''(attached research university institute)'' *

Barcelona School of Economics The Barcelona School of Economics (BSE) is an institute for research and graduate education in Economics, Finance, Data Science, and the social sciences located in Barcelona, Spain. BSE research has been ranked among the top Economics Department ...

(BSE) ''(attached research university institute)'' * Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) ''(attached research university institute)'' *

Institute of Evolutionary Biology The Institute of Evolutionary Biology (In Spanish ''Instituto de Biología Evolutiva'' IBE (CSIC-UPF) is a joint research center of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) founded in 2008. IBE is the only res ...

(IBE) ''(joint research institute)'' * Research Centre for International Economics (CREI) ''(participated research centre)'' * Institute for Political Economy and Governance (IPEG) ''(participated research centre)'' * BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Center ''(participated research centre)'' * Phonos Foundation ''(associated research centre)''

Research Centre for International Economics

The Research Centre for International Economics (''Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional'' (CREI)) is a research institute sponsored by the government of Catalonia (

Generalitat de Catalunya The Generalitat de Catalunya (; ; ), or the Government of Catalonia, is the institutional system by which Catalonia is self-governed as an autonomous community of Spain. It is made up of the Parliament of Catalonia, the President of the Govern ...

) and the UPF led by the economist

Jordi Galí Jordi Galí (born January 4, 1961) is a Spanish macroeconomist who is regarded as one of the main figures in New Keynesian macroeconomics today. He is a Senior Researcher at the Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI), a Professor at ...

. Its headquarters is on the campus of UPF in Barcelona, near the Department of Economics and Business at UPF (Ciutadella Campus), which collaborates in many research and teaching fields. The research activities are focused on

international economics International economics is concerned with the effects upon economic activity from international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the international institutions that affect them. It seeks to explain the patterns an ...

and macroeconomics (including growth, business cycles, monetary economics, macroeconometrics, trade and international finance, economic geography, etc.). It tries to emphasize these fields of studies in the European dimension.

Governance

Enric Argullol served as rector from the founding until June 2001, followed by M. Rosa Virós i Galtier (2001–2005), Josep Joan Moreso (2005–2013), Jaume Casals (2013–2021) and Oriol Amat (2021–2023). The current rector, Laia de Nadal, was elected in May 2023.

Rankings

The position of UPF is presented in the following international rankings
Times Higher Education (THE)Quacquarelli Symonds (QS)
the one published b

U-Multirank (promoted by the EU)
an
the Leiden ranking
which is focused on research.

Notable alumni

* Rita Almeida, economist *

Pol Antràs Pol Antràs Puchal (born June 30, 1975) is a Catalan economist who has served as the Robert G. Ory Professor of Economics at Harvard University since 2015.https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/cv_antras_oct_2024.pdf Born i ...

, economist and professor at Harvard *

Elsa Artadi Elsa Artadi i Vila (born 19 August 1976) is a Spanish economist, academic and politician from Catalonia. Artadi is a member of the Parliament of Catalonia and was previously Minister of the Presidency and Government Spokesperson of Catalonia. B ...

, economist, academic and politician *

Meritxell Batet Meritxell Batet Lamaña (; born 19 March 1973) is a Spanish jurist, politician, and member of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), who served as President of the Congress of Deputies from 2019 to 2023. Prior to this, she served as Ministe ...

, jurist and politician *

Javier Beltrán Javier Beltrán Andreu (born 18 May 1983 in Barcelona, Spain) is a Spanish film and theatre actor. Beltrán pursued his studies in Barcelona, which included a four-year humanities course at Pompeu Fabra University. He later studied dramatic ar ...

, film and theatre actor *

Genís Boadella Genís Boadella i Esteve (born 20 March 1979) is a Spanish lawyer and politician from Catalonia, and a member of the Congress of Deputies of Spain. Early life Boadella was born on 20 March 1979 in Barcelona, Catalonia. He has a degree in law fr ...

, lawyer and politician *

David Bonneville David Bonneville (Porto, 1978) is a film director and screenwriter of French and British descent. Education and background Bonneville received the University of Westminster academic Excellence scholarship for his MA in Screenwriting & Producing ...

, London-based filmmaker * Gloria Aura Bortolini; journalist, photographer and filmmaker *

Antonio Briceño Antonio Briceño (born 5 December 1966) is a Venezuelan photographer and activist for environmental issues, ethnic minorities, and human rights. He has a graduate degree in biology from the Central University of Venezuela and a master's degree i ...

, photographer * Javier Calvo, writer * Diego Comin, economist * Lluís Galter, cinema director * Berta García Faet, poet, translator, and scholar of Hispanic literature * Uri Giné, musician * Míriam Hatibi, data analyst and activist * Joan Herrera i Torres, lawyer and politician *

Teresa Colom i Pich Teresa Colom i Pich (born 12 December 1973) is an Andorran author and poet. She won the Miquel Martí i Pol prize in 2000 and the Maria Àngels Anglada prize in 2016. She has published several collections of poetry, a collection of short stories, ...

, poet and novelist *

Tatiana Huezo Tatiana Huezo Sánchez (; born 9 January 1972) is a film director of Salvadoran and Mexican nationality, residing in Mexico. Her first film, ' (2011), a documentary about the Salvadoran Civil War, has been awarded internationally. In 2016 she ...

, film director of Salvadoran and Mexican nationality *Kenmochi Hideki, inventor of

Vocaloid is a singing Speech synthesis, voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project between Yamaha Corporation and the Music Technology Group at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. The s ...

Isaki Lacuesta Isaki Lacuesta (born 28 November 1975) is a Spanish film director from Catalonia. His work includes documentary film, narrative film and video art. Lacuesta was born into a family of Basque origin. He studied audiovisual communication at the Auto ...

, film director *

Oliver Laxe Óliver Laxe Coro (; born 11 April 1982) is a French-born Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor of Galicians, Galician ancestry. His feature directorial debut, ''You All Are Captains'', premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, where i ...

, film director, screenwriter and actor * Sergi Miquel, politician *

Carles Mundó Carles Mundó i Blanch (born 1976) is a Spanish lawyer and politician from Catalonia who served as the Minister of Justice of Catalonia until the dismissal of the Parliament of Catalonia and of the Catalan Government in 2017 due to its decla ...

, lawyer and politician * Neus Munté, politician *

Mónica Ojeda Mónica Ojeda Franco (born 17 May 1988) is an Ecuadorian writer. A native of Guayaquil, she obtained her bachelor's degree from the Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, followed by a master's degree from the Universidad Pompeu Fabra de ...

, Ecuadorian writer * Martha Lucía Ospina Martínez, first woman director of Colombia's Instituto Nacional de Salud * Marta Pascal, politician * Marta Rosique, politician *

Gabriel Rufián Gabriel Rufián Romero (born 8 February 1982) is a Spanish politician. In the Spanish general election of 2015 he led the Republican Left of Catalonia, a pro-independence electoral party. He is also a member of the secretariat of the Assemblea ...

, politician *

Sandra Sabatés Sandra Sabatés (Granollers, 29 July 1979) is a Spanish journalist and TV presenter. She studied Audiovisual Communication at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. She attended the private Escola Pia in Granollers as a child. She began to work a ...

, journalist *

Uwe Sunde Uwe Sunde (born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on May 29, 1973) is a German economist and currently Professor of Economics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) as well as a Research Professor in the ifo Institute for Economic Research, if ...

, German economist * Roger Torrent, politician and urban planner * Nicole Vanden Broeck, filmmaker *

Mireia Vehí Mireia Vehí i Cantenys (; born 9 February 1985) is a Spanish sociologist and politician from Catalonia, who served as Member of the Congress of Deputies of Spain. She was previously a member of the Parliament of Catalonia. Early life and family ...

, sociologist and politician *

Alexia Putellas Alèxia Putellas i Segura ( , Alexia Putellas Segura; born 4 February 1994), often known mononymously as Alexia, is a Spanish professional footballer from Catalonia who plays as a midfielder or forward for Liga F club Barcelona, which she cap ...

, professional footballer * Valeria Zalaquett, Chilean photographer and portraitist

Notable faculty

Maria Teresa Cabré Maria Teresa Cabré i Castellví (known as M. Teresa Cabré; born 1947) is a Catalan linguist. She is professor ''emeritus'' of Linguistics and Terminology at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). Since 2021, she has been president of the Institute for C ...

, linguist * Jaume Casals, philosopher * Josep Joan Moreso, legal scholar *

Vicenç Navarro Vicente Navarro (born 1937 in Gironella, Spain) is a Spanish sociologist and political scientist. He has been a Professor of Health and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, US, for over 30 years. He is also Emeritus, emeritus professor in p ...

, sociologist * Xavier Sala-i-Martin, economist *

Eugenio Trías Sagnier Eugenio Trías Sagnier (31 August 1942 – 10 February 2013) was a Spanish philosopher. Critics have likened his work to Ortega y Gasset in the philosophical literature written in Spanish. Biography Trías was born in Barcelona. After obtaini ...

, philosopher * Teun A. van Dijk, linguist *

Xavier Serra Xavier Serra (born September 10, 1959) is a researcher in the field of Sound and Music Computing and professor at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Barcelona. He is the founder and director of the Music Technology Group at the UPF. Life and ...

, music technology scholar *

Andreu Mas-Colell Andreu Mas-Colell (; born 29 June 1944) is an economist, an expert in microeconomics and a prominent mathematical economist. He is the founder of the Barcelona School of Economics and a professor in the department of economics at Pompeu Fabra ...

, economist *

, economist * Sergi Jordà, music technology scholar * Paul Verschure, cognitive systems and neuro-robotics *

Lydia Zimmermann Lydia Martina Zimmermann Kuoni (born 30 December 1966) is a Spaniards, Spanish Catalans, Catalan actress and film director.Aroca, María Victoria. Lydia Zimmermann, sencillez escogida�Archive. ''S Moda El País'' (in Spanish). 7 January 2012. R ...

, filmmaker *

Gøsta Esping-Andersen Gøsta Esping-Andersen (; born 24 November 1947) is a Danish sociologist whose primary focus has been on the welfare state and its place in capitalist economies. Jacob Hacker describes him as the "dean of welfare state scholars." Over the past ...

, sociologist *

Guillem López Casasnovas Guillem () is a Catalan first name, equivalent to William in the English language, which occasionally can appear as a surname. Its origin and pronunciation are the same as its Occitan variant ''Guilhèm'', with a different spelling. People with t ...

, economist *

Xavier Freixas Xavier or Xabier may refer to: Place * Xavier, Spain People * Xavier (surname) * Xavier (given name) * Francis Xavier (1506–1552), Catholic saint ** St. Francis Xavier (disambiguation) * St. Xavier (disambiguation) * Xavier (footballer, born ...

, economist *

Ricardo Baeza-Yates Ricardo A. Baeza-Yates (born March 21, 1961) is a Chilean computer scientist specializing in algorithms, data structures, information retrieval, web search and responsible AI. He is currently the Director of Research at the Institute for Experien ...

, computer scientist *

Javier Díaz Noci Javier Díaz Noci (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1964) is a professor and researcher at Pompeu Fabra University. He was one of the first researchers on digital journalism in Spain. He has also specialized in the study of the history of journalism and legal r ...

, digital journalism researcher * Nuria Mas, professor and researcher, counselor

References

External links

The university's English-language website

UPF's International Excellence Campus official website
{{Coord, 41, 22, 45, N, 2, 10, 47, E, region:ES-CT_type:edu, display=title Education in Barcelona Universities and colleges established in 1990 1990 establishments in Catalonia Buildings and structures in Barcelona Universities and colleges in Spain