Rector Joan Elias warns about the ʻdanger of extinctionʼ regarding the Catalan public university system

The rector focused his speech on the problems the university is facing. “Although it hurts to say this, the Catalan public university system is endangered. And it is better to say it clear. If the Catalan society wants to maintain a leading university system in teaching and quality research, we should pay attention to at least three aspects: teachers, infrastructures and funding”, he said. Regarding the teaching staff, he talked about the precariousness of the staff since the economic crisis started and warned about a “warning process of ageing and lack of motivation”. Regarding the infrastructures, he said “the problem is the lack of renewal in quality research teams”. Last, when commenting on the funding, he reminded the audience that our surrounding countries receive a public funding for the university which is three or four times higher and that “funding supports to the university are the most sustainable and profitable investment a government can make; and this is what the leading countries in university rankings understand”.

Regarding the current political and social movement, the rector claimed that “the university function can only be fully developed in a legal framework that bears the fundamental rights and freedom; among them are freedom of speech, meetings, media and association and academic freedom. Also, the universities have to contributed to defend and promote these civil rights”.

Then, Joan Elias announced that over the next weeks he will publish a management plan for the upcoming academic year and called all members of the University to collaborate in order to reach all aims of the institution. He concluded his speech with a message for the university community, proposing a “self-esteem exercise”. “We have the talent, the passion, solidarity, commitment, sacrifice and are able to continue improving” he said.

The Secretary for Universities and Research, Arcadi Navarro, began his speech commenting on the “historical context of Catalonia”. In this sense, he wanted to emphasize on the solidarity and support from people and teachers of this institution, especially Professor Jordi Matas, President of Sindicatura Electoral in Catalonia.

Navarro affirmed the Catalan university system is a “successful model in the big impact it has on society and productivity”. “One of the main barriers for the Catalan university was the replacement rate. Today, for instance, seventy people retired. It was impossible to replace them not very long ago” said the secretary. “The UB is the model of our system, very powerful. With a 0.1% of population, we generate the 1.3 % of the scientific production in Europe. Also, we are the third country regarding the amount of students that attend one of the top 100 universities in the continent”, concluded Navarro.

The acting president of the Board of Trustees of the UB, Joan Corominas, who began his speech remembering the victims of the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, manifested the support of the Board of Trustees to the rector to reach the Universityʼs potentialities and overcome its difficulties. Corominas referred to the National Pact for the University (PNU), which he expects to be “the tool to improve funding and renewal of the human team”. He put emphasis on the fact that the Board of Trustees has to promote the work done at the University on innovation and training aiming to reduce distances regarding the needs in the labour market.

New strategies to release drugs in the brain, in the opening lecture

During the opening lecture, Professor Ernest Giralt remembered that, compared to others, “mental illnesses are still far from receiving efficient therapeutic approaches”. One of the main reasons of this lack of efficiency is the so-called blood-brain barrier. “We can think of the brain as a walled medieval city” says Giralt, and this function is the one carried out by the blood-brain barrier, “controlling the passing of any molecule”. This protecting function against undesired agents entering the brain “is clearly beneficial, but in a disease, it is an obstacle regarding drug treatments” added the researcher. As data, “it was estimated that approximately 98 % of the potential drugs given for the treatment of diseases in the central nervous system cannot cross the blood-brain barrier”, says Giralt.

Regarding the current strategies, the researcher highlighted that “some are very invasive and consist on directly administrating drugs into the central nervous system”. In this context, Giraltʼs team is working on non-invasive strategies based on the use of peptides -small proteins- as therapeutic agents, using the peptide shuttles. After analyzing a wide variety of peptides and different structures and developing several peptide shuttles, “our experience proved that instead of looking for an ideal universal shuttle, the best is to have a ʻlistʼ, like a menu on a restaurant, which includes different shuttles and allows us to use the most appropriate peptide for each drug”, said Giralt.

“At the moment our group is interested in vectoring drugs for the treatment of two of the rare or minority diseases: Friedrich ataxia and the diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)” concluded Giralt.

The Choir of the University performed in the ceremony, and the secretary-general of the UB gave way to the opening video, a new presentation format including personal testimonials of several representatives of the university community. Also, the medals of the University of Barcelona were awarded to the teaching staff and the administration and services staff who retired last academic year.

A selection of photographs of the opening ceremony are available on this link