Wednesday, 16 November, he will be honoured at the Sant Cugat Campus of UIC Barcelona, which has a laboratory named in his honour, and where the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is located.

Jordi Cervós i Navarro (1930-2021) studied medicine at the universities of Barcelona and Zaragoza, and in 1952 moved to Germany, where he specialised in neuropathology. His important research career took off with his discovery that there were nerves in the arteriole. For this reason, he will be remembered as the Father of Cerebral Microcirculation.

Over the nearly 40 years he lived in Germany, Jordi Cervós i Navarro was vice president of Freie Universität Berlin and head of its Neuropathology Institute. He was also the president of the German Society of Neuropathology and Neuroanatomy.

In 1997, Dr Cervós returned to Barcelona to become the first rector of the newly created Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (1997-2001). He was then the director of International Relations (2001-2007) and travelled all around the world promoting the university. Dr Cervós held seven honorary doctorates, from the universities of Hannover (Germany), Tokushima (Japan), Saransk (Russia), Thessaloniki (Greece), Zaragoza (Spain), Barcelona (Spain) and the Complutense de Madrid (Spain).

A member of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Catalonia, in addition to seven honourable doctorates, Dr Cervós also received the “Cross of Civil Merit” from the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Gran Cruz del Orden Civil de Alfonso X el Sabio and the Creu de Sant Jordi (2002) of Spain.

In January of 2009, he celebrated his 80th birthday in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he was paid tribute by naming one of the Faculty’s laboratories after him. 

Next Wednesday, 16 November, at the UIC Barcelona Sant Cugat Campus, a tribute ceremony will be held with the presence of Dr José Vicente Lafuente, professor of Neurosciences at the University of the Basque Country, who will retrace the scientific production of Dr Cervós with a speech on neuropathology. In addition, the event will have a round table panel discussion with the participation of lead figures in the university and research areas such as Dr Vicente Calatayud Maldonado, professor emeritus of Neurosurgery at the University of Zaragoza; Dr Josep Eladi Baños, rector of the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia; Dr Lluís Giner, dean of the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Dentistry; and Dr Marian Lorente, lecturer in the department of medicine at the University of Barcelona.

The tribute, as part of the University’s 25th anniversary, will end with a coffee-colloquium on the life and work of Dr Jordi Cervós and the inauguration of the retrospective exhibit on his life and work.