The Board of Trustees of the URL Foundation aproves the extention of the rector Josep Maria Garrell’s term of office to a third one

Wednesday, 1st July 2020. Yesterday, the Board of Trustees of Ramon Llull University (URL) unanimously approved to extend the appointment of Josep Maria Garrell as a rector of URL for a third term of two years. The appointment will comprise the period from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2022.

In this way, Josep Maria Garrell, a computer science engineer from UPC and doctor engineer of Electronics by URL, will be renewed for the second time as Rector of the University, a position that he has held from October 2012, and that he was re-elected in October 2016.

Josep Maria Garrell served as Vice-rector for Research and Innovation (2002-2010); Secretary General (2006-2010) and Vice-rector for University Policy (2010-2012). Nowadays, he is member of the Permanent Committee of Conference of Spanish University Rectors (CRUE) and he is member of the Board of the European University Association (EUA).

The president of the Board of Trustees, Josep Martínez-Rovira, highlighted yesterday that in an environment of political, economic and social uncertainty as the current one, “the renewal of the Rector are great news”. In his speech, the President stressed that “the deep knowledge that the Rector has of the federated institutions of the University, and his links to both national and international university bodies make him essential in these moments”. Likewise, the President outlined the commitment of rector Garrell to the University and his experience in the higher education and research field. Eventually, Martínez-Rovira expressed that “the vision and management capacity of the rector has merited this renewal”, and he thanked his acceptance of the position.

During the meeting, Rector Garrell appreciated the confidence received from the Board of Trustees, and expressed his enthusiasm to address this new term with all the challenges derived from it. Likewise, he highlighted the difficulties that the university world is currently facing as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic and which has provoked an emergency adaptation of all university activities to the new reality and its necessities. In this sense, the Rector stressed that the crisis will also cause positive changes and transformations in our society, and it will speed up processes to adapt to new times. The Rector ended its speech giving thanks to the efforts that all the university community are making in order to keep guaranteeing a service to society in the best conditions.