The rector of the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona), Xavier Gil Mur, has been appointed president of the Vives Universities Network, in accordance with the institution’s six-month rotating presidency calendar. Gil is taking over from the rector of the Miguel Hernández University of Elche, Jesús Pastor Ciurana.
The programme of activities scheduled for Xavier Gil’s presidency includes the publication of eleven guides with teaching resources to help teaching staff from different subject areas to incorporate a gender-based approach into university teaching. Moreover, his presidency will coincide with the launch of the pilot edition of the interuniversity ETHERIA course designed for students enrolled in senior programmes at the universities. A number of training workshops and branch meetings will also be held as part of the Vives Forum in the areas of Catalan language (language volunteering programmes, applying new IEC grammar and spelling rules), healthy universities (strategic definition of the healthy university campus model), gender equality, senior programmes, students and cultural management at universities. The 9th edition of the Introductory course to teaching Catalan as a foreign language organised by the Valencian Academy of Language and the Institut Ramon Llull will also take place.
The new president was previously director of the School of Industrial Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), where he also held the posts of vice-rector for Research and, afterwards, vice-rector for Scientific Policy. Furthermore, he was member of the Executive Committee for R&D as representative of the vice-rectors of research at Catalan universities. In addition, he was commissioner of the Government of Catalonia for the development of the UPC Diagonal-Besòs campus. He has been rector of UIC Barcelona since 2015.
Previous holders of the presidency of Vives Universities Network have been: Eva Alcón Soler (second vice-president and rector of Universitat Jaume I), Eva Perea Muñoz (third vice-president and rector of Abat Oliba CEU University) and Jesús Pastor Ciurana (fourth vice-president and rector of Miguel Hernández University of Elche).
