PDI-PTGAS news

  • Francesc Torres, elected rector of the UPC, according to final results

    Professor Francesc Torres has been elected as rector of the UPC, according to the final results of the voting held from 13 to 16 May. Torres has been elected with 53.280% of the weighted votes, factoring in blank ballots, ahead of candidate Daniel Crespo, who received 36.161%.

  • UPC master's degrees: see the scheduled sessions and register on the web page

    What is the complete curriculum? What are the entrance requirements? What are the professional opportunities? Are there work placement programmes? Can I take part of the programme abroad? What is the language of instruction?. Answering these and other questions is the aim of the information sessions on master’s degrees. See the scheduled sessions and register on the web page.

  • The 1st UPC Artificial Intelligence Challenge expands its scope and extends the registration period to 15 November

    The UPC Artificial Intelligence Challenge (IA Challenge) will recognise the best projects applying this technology in any of the University’s fields of knowledge. The competition is open to more than 30,000 UPC bachelor’s and master’s students, who can submit their proposals until 15 November. In addition, partner companies have introduced six new industrial challenges.

  • Elections for rector 2025: voting takes place from 13 to 16 May

    The candidates for UPC rector are professors Daniel Crespo Artiaga and Francesc Torres Torres. From today, 13 May, until 16 May, voting takes place by electronic ballot on the website eleccionesrectorat2025.upc.edu. The provisional results will be made public on 16 May. A candidate will be elected in the first round if they receive more than half of the valid votes, after applying the weightings assigned to each voting group and factoring in blank ballots. If none of the candidates reaches this threshold, a second round will be held between them. In the second round, the winner is the candidate with a simple majority, again based on the same weightings and excluding blank votes.

  • The UPC once again at the IoT Solutions World Congress

    From 13 to 15 May, the UPC, through the CIT-UPC, is showcasing cutting-edge projects and solutions in the fields of IoT, AI and digital transformation.

  • New method developed to identify regions at high risk of compound flooding along the Spanish Mediterranean coast

    A joint research effort by the UPC and the UGR has developed an innovative method to detect and classify areas at high risk of compound flooding—flooding caused by a combination of intense rainfall, river overflows and coastal events such as storms and heavy waves. The study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, has identified three particularly vulnerable regions: central Valencia, northern Catalonia and western Andalusia.

  • On 8 May, electoral debate between Daniel Crespo and Francesc Torres, candidates for rector of the UPC

    On May 8 at 4 p.m., candidates for rector of the UPC Daniel Crespo and Francesc Torres faced off in an electoral debate in the Auditorium of the Vèrtex building, located on the Diagonal Nord Campus in Barcelona. The event was broadcast live on YouTube. ...

  • The UPC returns to normal academic activity

    The UPC is resuming its academic activity with full normality on all its campuses from Wednesday, April 30th.

  • The UPC, Spain’s leading university for European patent filings

    The UPC is the Spanish university that filed the highest number of European patent applications in 2024, according to data from the European Patent Office. The UPC’s filings rose by more than 30% compared to the previous year.

  • Citizen science and numerical modelling to tackle marine plastic pollution and improve environmental management

    The UPC’s Maritime Engineering Laboratory is taking part in a European project aimed at improving the management of plastic pollution in the north-western Mediterranean and raising public awareness about the importance of protecting the marine environment.

  • Sustainable 3D printing resins developed from plant-based materials

    A team from the UPC and the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia has developed polymeric resins derived from plant-based materials aimed at reducing 3D printing’s reliance on fossil fuel-based resins. The research findings have been published in 'RSC Applied Polymers', a journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

  • The Interdisciplinary Research Institute of Architecture (IRIA-UPC) is presented in Barcelona

    On 1 April, the UPC presented the Interdisciplinary Research Institute of Architecture (IRIA-UPC) with the aim of promoting and strengthening research, innovation and knowledge transfer in architecture, urban planning and building. IRIA-UPC, which brings together architects, urban planners and technical architects, is a pioneering institute within the university system and aspires to become an international benchmark in these fields.

  • The UPC in the world’s top 25 for Architecture and top 50 for Space and Planetary Sciences, according to the Scimago World Institutions Rankings

    The UPC is listed among the world’s top 25 in Architecture and top 50 in Space and Planetary Sciences, according to the Scimago World Institutions Rankings. In total, the UPC is listed among the top 100 universities worldwide in nine rankings and leads the national rankings in Spain in Engineering, Computer Science, Energy, Mathematics, Aerospace Engineering, Architecture and Mechanical Engineering. At the institutional level, the UPC also leads Spain’s university system in innovation.

  • The UPC among the world’s top 50 in Architecture and Art History in the 2025 QS Rankings by Subject

    The 2025 QS World University Rankings by Subject rank the UPC the world’s 38th in Architecture and Built Environment and in the 21–40 band in Art History. The rankings also place the University among the world’s top 100 in the broad subject area of Engineering and Technology and in the subjects of Industrial, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering; Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; and Civil and Structural Engineering.

  • The UPC leads an innovative project within Unite! to tackle climate challenges in cities

    Bringing together experts to develop architectural and urban solutions The project “Cities in times of drought or abundance”, funded by the Unite! Seed Fund and coordinated by the UPC, will gather European experts to develop architectural and urban solutions in response to the effects of climate change.

  • Five new master’s degrees for the 2025-2026 academic year to train professionals specialised in emerging fields

    The UPC is introducing five new master’s degrees for the academic year 2025-2026, addressing the demand for specialised professionals in fields such as digital architecture, distributed energy systems, biomedical technologies, industry 4.0 and water engineering.

  • New edition of the UPC Research Valorisation Award, supported by Fractus

    A new call for applications is open for the UPC Research Valorisation Award, accepting submissions from the UPC’s teaching and research staff until 10 April.

  • Protecting marine ecosystems from ship-induced noise pollution

    The UPC’s Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB) participates in a European project focused on developing technologies to reduce underwater noise pollution caused by maritime traffic, which poses a threat to marine ecosystems. The LAB will assess the effectiveness of noise reduction systems installed on five vessels.

  • Unite! Seed Fund for students, researchers and professors: call for applications open until 20 March

    The 2025 Unite! Seed Fund offers financial support to students, researchers and professors who wish to initiate joint initiatives between at least three Unite! universities. The deadline for all submissions is 20 March.

  • All the information on UPC postgraduate degrees at the Virtual Postgraduate Fair

    The 3rd Virtual Postgraduate Fair kicked off on Monday, March 3, and will run online until March 7, providing information on the range of postgraduate courses offered at the UPC: master’s, doctoral and lifelong learning master’s degrees. Registration remains open throughout the event.

  • Advancing space exploration: a pioneering experiment in cryogenic fuel management in space

    Researchers from the UPC’s Space Exploration Laboratory are contributing to the development of advanced technologies for the storage and refuelling of cryogenic propellants in microgravity conditions. This technology, which will be key to driving space exploration and advancing Europe’s space transportation ecosystem, will be validated through an in-orbit experiment—the first of its kind in Europe.

  • UPC positions Barcelona as the epicenter of European higher education

    Under the motto ‘Unite Students!: our soul, our core,’ this edition will gather 500 participants from the nine universities of the European alliance, focusing on the role of students in its future. The event provides a key opportunity to drive Unite! projects forward and strengthen the collaboration among the alliance’s university communities.

  • The UPC stops posting on X

    On 19 February, the UPC’s Governing Council unanimously approved the decision to cease posting on the University’s institutional profiles on X. This decision reflects the University’s commitment to communicating in spaces that ensure information quality and accuracy.

  • International award for a UPC project to pave the way for the shipyard of the future

    Coordinated by Xavier Martínez Garcia, a professor at the UPC’s FNB and a researcher at CIMNE, FIBRE4YARDS is developing new composite material manufacturing technologies that enable a redefinition of shipyards, aiming to minimise environmental impact, improve vessel quality and reduce construction costs. The initiative has won the Maritime Transportation & Shipbuilding category of the JEC Innovation Awards—prestigious awards recognised as a benchmark in the field of advanced materials.

  • Transforming the construction sector towards a circular economy: DISCOVER, a new project led by the UPC

    The UPC leads the European project DISCOVER, an innovative initiative to reduce construction and demolition waste through artificial intelligence technologies, advanced robotics and building information modelling (BIM). With the aim of transforming the sector into a more sustainable and efficient model, DISCOVER focuses on material reuse and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Airgilab, the first living lab that regenerates building air with horticultural crops, is presented at the UPC’s ESEIAAT

    A greenhouse for urban agriculture, connected to classroom 3.07 and an office at the Terrassa School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering (ESEIAAT), absorbs CO2 from these spaces and transforms it into oxygen through photosynthesis. The clean air is recirculated back into the classroom if the conditions are suitable. This is how the Air quality & Green Infrastructure Living Lab (Airgilab) works, it is the first living lab to regenerate building air using agricultural crops. It was created by the Construction Research and Innovation Group (GRIC) of the UPC.

  • The UPC launches profile on Bluesky to strengthen its online presence

    The UPC has launched an official profile on the short messaging social network Bluesky to share institutional events and teaching, research and innovation activities at the University. This initiative expands the UPC’s channels for information and interaction with the university community and society.

  • The new space mission by the UPC NanoSat Lab for Earth observation RITA/ 3 Cat-6 successfully launched

    The payload RITA/³Cat-6 is now in orbit. It has been developed by doctoral students at the UPC NanoSat Lab and integrated into the Arab nanosatellite ALainSat-1. The UPC’s space payload carries instruments to gather data on sea salinity and soil humidity, and to measure vegetation status.

  • Leonardo Grant awarded to researcher Matias Carandell for innovation in marine ecosystem monitoring

    Matias Carandell Widmer, a researcher at the UPC’s Department of Electronic Engineering and at the Technological Development Centre for Remote Acquisition and Data Processing Systems (SARTI), has been awarded a Leonardo Grant from the BBVA Foundation to improve the acquisition and transmission of oceanographic data. The project focuses on integrating emerging buoys into autonomous marine monitoring platforms to provide real- time data access and allow researchers to more effectively address the deterioration of ocean biodiversity.

  • Unite! students present the U!Train Manifesto with key recommendations to improve the European railway system

    Students from the Unite! alliance, which features the UPC and eight other European universities, have produced the U!Train Manifesto. The document calls on policymakers, transport ministers, infrastructure managers and universities to prioritise the revitalisation of railway systems across Europe. Published on 26 November to mark World Sustainable Transport Day, the Manifesto offers key recommendations and is the result of the U!Train initiative, which identified over 200 critical points.