Universitat de Barcelona

Since 1990, various Catalan research groups attached to the University of Barcelona have worked in conjunction to reconstruct the distant past of the first humans and the behaviour of existing primates.

This is a unique initiative at international level, as it is the first time that research teams from different disciplines have come together to study the evolution and behaviour of our ancestors and other primates. These teams include: "Evolution of Hominids and other Primates", "HOMINID - Study Group on Human Origins" and "IT Technology in Behavioural Sciences".

In the Iberian Peninsula, enormous advances have been made in studies of the origin and evolution of human and non-human primates, due to the paleoanthropological finds at Can Llobateres (Barcelona) and other archeological and paleoanthropological discoveries in Spain. Consequently, we considered that it the right moment to create a centre for primate research in the heart of the University of Barcelona. Thus, CERP was founded.

The lecturer Philip V. Tobias, who is considered one of the most prestigious paleoanthropologists worldwide and is an honorary doctor of the University of Barcelona, has commented on this collaboration of specialists. During one of his visits to Catalonia, he stated that never before has such a major network of scientists, including anthropologists, primatologists, prehistorians, chemists, geologists, paleontologists and philosophers, come together to study the origins of humans and their evolutionary cousins: non-human primates.