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At 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 17, a ceremony to mark the start of work on the Diagonal Besòs Campus was attended by the mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu; the Government of Catalonia’s Minister of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, Josep Huguet; the head of the Barcelona Provincial Council’s Department of Infrastructure, Urban Planning and Housing, Anna Hernàndez; the mayor of Sant Adrià de Besòs, Jesús Maria Canga; and the president of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)-Barcelona Tech, Antoni Giró.

The future campus will specialize in the area of industrial engineering, providing a space for academic programs of the highest international standard and research related to water, energy and transport. The College of Industrial Engineering of Barcelona (EUETIB) and the School of Industrial Engineering of Barcelona (ETSEIB) will be the twin engines at the heart of the new campus.

The 100,000-m2 campus is scheduled to open in 2012. Initially, eight undergraduate programs and eight master’s degrees will be offered. Over 6000 students are expected to study there, and 700 members of the university’s teaching and research staff will work at the site.

These figures reflect the scope of this large-scale university development, which will be located at a focal point for growth. The Diagonal Besòs area is an entry point to Barcelona, between the capital and the city of Sant Adrià de Besòs. It is also an area of intense interaction between the counties of Barcelonès, Vallès Occidental, and Maresme.

The Campus is being built on land that belongs to the Diagonal Besòs Interuniversity Campus Consortium, which was set up by the public bodies that originally owned the land for the purpose of developing the new interuniversity campus and establishing science and technology clusters there.

During the ceremony of laying the first stone, the mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, said of the start of construction work on the new campus: “We’re laying the foundation for progress and developing the metropolitan area. This symbolic act must be a strategic step in the process of making Catalonia a region where innovation, research and the future are central to policy.”

The Catalan minister for Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, Josep Huguet, said the first stone “is one more element that will help the region focus on excellence: we’re building a pole to be the best.”

UPC President Antoni Giró pointed out that few projects have received as much support from political forces as the new campus. He also stressed that “for the first time, industrial engineering students and instructors will have the opportunity to use spaces designed with these programs in mind right from the outset—spaces configured to accommodate the activities the UPC -Barcelona Tech engages in: research, exploitation of results, teaching, and innovation. Avinguda Diagonal is becoming a knowledge hub”.

According to the mayor of Sant Adrià de Besòs, Jesús Maria Canga, “the new campus will play an important rebalancing role and will be an economic engine for the city.”

Anna Hernàndez, head of the Barcelona Provincial Council’s Department of Infrastructure, Urban Planning and Housing, emphasized the role the EUETIB will play at the new campus.
 

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) recently decided that a Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) focusing on the theme of energy will be coordinated by the UPC-Barcelona Tech from a Spanish center of operations known as Co-Location Center Iberia, which will be located at the new campus.