Dr Rubiralta thanked his governing team, the deans and directors, the members of the Governing Council, and the university community as a whole for their support during his time as Rector. He mentioned all the sectors of the community – faculty, administration and services staff, and students – and stressed their enthusiasm and wholehearted dedication to their duties over the past three years. For his part, Josep Samitier, the Acting Rector, thanked Dr Rubiralta and the whole of the governing team for placing their trust in him, and called on the whole university community to work together in this interim period until the new Rector takes possession after the elections scheduled for October 2008.

Dr Rubiralta is standing down as Rector of the University of Barcelona after his appointment as Secretary of State for Universities at the new Ministry of Science and Innovation. This office will be responsible for the universities, scientific research, technological development and innovation in all sectors, and will also coordinate Spain’s public research institutions. The Secretary of State’s Office for Universities will have two general directorates: Universities, and Research and Knowledge Transfer Programs.

Josep Samitier i Marti, currently Vice-rector of Innovation and International Research Programs at the UB, is Full Professor of Electronics at the Faculty of Physics. Born in Barcelona in 1960, Dr Samitier has been Head of Studies in Electronic Engineering and Director of the Department of Electronics, and has worked on the commissions set up to design the current study plans in Physics and Electronic Engineering. He is an expert in methodologies for the assessment of university quality and is a member of many of the assessment commissions created by Spain’s Council of Universities and various assessment agencies in Catalonia, such as the AQU and the ACUA. In his teaching career, Dr Samitier has taught Physics and Electronic Engineering at his Faculty and has also taken part in the masters’ courses in Nanotechnology and Biomedical Engineering.

In the area of research, Dr Samitier is a member of the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the University of Barcelona (IN2UB), coordinator of the Consolidated Research Group in Instrumentation and Communications Systems, (SIC), director of the Nanobioengineering Laboratory, affiliated to the Bioengineering Institute of Catalonia (IBEC), and assistant director of the Networking Biomedical Research Centre in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN). He coordinates and participates in many European networks and projects, many of them devoted to the research and development of microsystems and nanotechnologies. He has published over 150 articles in high impact international journals, presented more than 170 papers at international congresses, and has supervised 10 PhD theses.

In the field of innovation and knowledge transfer, he has been coordinator of the Spanish Nanomedicine Technological Platform since its foundation; he is joint director of the Microsystems Engineering Centre (CEMIC) of the Catalan government’s Technological Innovation Centres Network, and for four years was Deputy Director of the Barcelona Scientific Park. He has participated in several knowledge transfer projects and is the joint author of six patents. In 2003 he was awarded the City of Barcelona Prize for technological innovation. In June 2005 he was appointed Vice-rector of International Policy, and since January 2007 he has been Vice-rector of Innovation and International Research Programs at the University of Barcelona.