The UNIV Forum is a space for interdisciplinary dialogue between students from different universities.  Participants present a project related to the general topic of each edition to a jury in groups. This year the topic was “The family footprint”, which is what the focus was at the event held on Saturday 13 February.

The closing speech was given by Javier Vidal-Quadras, a Law professor at UIC Barcelona and General Secretary of the International Federation for Family Development (IFFD). He is also President of the Family Watch Institute, and he gave a speech entitled:  “La familia, el hábitat humano” [The family, the human habitat].

During his talk, Vidal-Quadras, who in his role as General Secretary of the IFFD is also a UN consultant, described the reasons why the family is important in society:  “It is the battlefield for ideologies — he stated —, because when you don’t have any filiation, you seek affiliation”.  In relation to this, the speaker described his role in the United Nations:  “We study and look for the type of family that really does help and also focus on the interests of minors, in order to protect them.  It is good for us all to have our family as a role model — he stated — , when you take into account the fact that a sustainable family is one which allows current needs to be satisfied, without forgetting about future generations”.  And what is this sustainable family like?  According to the speaker, “it is difficult to define what the family is- not even the UN has a clear definition of what it is —, however statistics show that what really works is the original family type”.

This talk closed the VI UNIV UIC Barcelona Forum.  Students are now waiting to find out which three talks have been awarded a grant so their authors can participate in the international stage of this forum. The international stage will be held at Easter, in Rome.