The Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities (SACRU) is formally constituted and the rector of the URL is chosen as its first president

Thursday, July 9, 2020. The top representatives of the universities that belong to SACRU (Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities) held a virtual meeting yesterday to formally constitute the alliance.

Likewise, during the meeting, the university representatives unanimously approved the statutes of this alliance, defined the structure of its governing bodies and elected the representatives that will hold the positions of the governing bodies:

• Presidency: Universitat Ramon Llull, in the person of its rector, Josep Maria Garrell.
• Vice-presidency: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in the person of its rector, Ignacio Sánchez Díaz.
• General Secretariat: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, in the person of its Vice Rector, Pier Sandro Cocconcelli.
• Technical Secretariat: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

In his speech on accepting the post, the rector of the URL, Josep Maria Garrell, thanked the members of SACRU for their trust in choosing Universitat Ramon Llull to preside over this first period of the alliance. The rector highlighted the potential of SACRU, as well as the commitment of all its universities to teaching and research excellence and their international and global commitment.

SACRU is made up of a total of eight Catholic or Christian-inspired universities from around the world. These universities are the Australian Catholic University (Australia), Boston College (USA), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Chile), Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Sophia University (Japan), Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Portugal), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy) and Universitat Ramon Llull (Spain).

In October last year, the first annual meeting of the network was held at the Rector's Office of the Ramon Llull University. Fifty people, including rectors, vice-rectors, directors and their teams, discussed the short- and long-term strategy of SACRU, as well as its governance model. Various debates also took place on the research priorities of the different institutions.