# Pompeu Fabra University

Pompeu Fabra University (Catalan: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, pronounced; Spanish: Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. Established in 1990 by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia and named after Pompeu Fabra, 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)

## 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 (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

* Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) (interuniversity research institute)
* UPF-Centre for Animal Ethics (UPF-CAE) (think tank)
* Institut Universitari de Cultura (IUC) (research institute)
* Music Technology Group (MTG) (research group)
* Science Communication Observatory (OCC) (special research centre)
* Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) (attached research university institute)
* Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) (attached research university institute)
* Barcelona School of Economics (BSE) (attached research university institute)
* Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) (attached research university institute)
* Institute of Evolutionary Biology (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) and the UPF led by the economist Jordi Galí. 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 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 by Shanghai University (ARWU) Archived 11 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine, U-Multirank (promoted by the EU), and the Leiden ranking, which is focused on research.
UPF's position in university rankings :
| RANKING | Spain | Europe | World |
| THE 2021 "150 Under 50" | 1 | 7 | 15 |
| QS 2021 "50 Under 50" | 1 | 8 | 28 |
| U-Ranking 2021 (national) | 1 | - | - |
| U-Multirank 2021 | 1 | 4 | - |
| Leiden 2021 "% of Top 10% publications" | 1 | 29 | 78 |

## Notable alumni

* Rita Almeida, economist
* Pol Antràs, economist and professor at Harvard
* Elsa Artadi, economist, academic and politician
* Meritxell Batet, jurist and politician
* Javier Beltrán, film and theatre actor
* Genís Boadella, lawyer and politician
* David Bonneville, London-based filmmaker
* Gloria Aura Bortolini; journalist, photographer and filmmaker
* Antonio Briceño, 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, poet and novelist
* Tatiana Huezo, film director of Salvadoran and Mexican nationality
* Kenmochi Hideki, inventor of Vocaloid
* Isaki Lacuesta, film director
* Oliver Laxe, film director, screenwriter and actor
* Sergi Miquel, politician
* Carles Mundó, lawyer and politician
* Neus Munté, politician
* Mónica Ojeda, Ecuadorian writer
* Martha Lucía Ospina Martínez, first woman director of Colombia's Instituto Nacional de Salud
* Marta Pascal, politician
* Marta Rosique, politician
* Gabriel Rufián, politician
* Sandra Sabatés, journalist
* Uwe Sunde, German economist
* Roger Torrent, politician and urban planner
* Nicole Vanden Broeck, filmmaker
* Mireia Vehí, sociologist and politician
* Alexia Putellas, professional footballer
* Valeria Zalaquett, Chilean photographer and portraitist

## Notable faculty

* Maria Teresa Cabré, linguist
* Jaume Casals, philosopher
* Josep Joan Moreso, legal scholar
* Vicenç Navarro, sociologist
* Xavier Sala-i-Martin, economist
* Eugenio Trías Sagnier, philosopher
* Teun A. van Dijk, linguist
* Xavier Serra, music technology scholar
* Andreu Mas-Colell, economist
* Jordi Galí, economist
* Sergi Jordà, music technology scholar
* Paul Verschure, cognitive systems and neuro-robotics
* Lydia Zimmermann, filmmaker
* Gøsta Esping-Andersen, sociologist
* Guillem López Casasnovas, economist
* Xavier Freixas, economist
* Ricardo Baeza-Yates, computer scientist
* Javier Díaz Noci, digital journalism researcher