The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), located in Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), near Barcelona, is one of the major public universities in Spain. Since its foundation in 1968, the UAB has been acknowledged for its excellence in promoting quality in teaching and in attracting international talent. The UAB has over 40,000 students, almost 6,000 researchers and teaching staff, and hosts more than 5,000 foreign students. Currently, the university offers more than 100 bachelor’s degrees, covering a wide range of fields in humanities and arts, social sciences, health sciences, technology and physical sciences, 140 master’s degrees, as well as 8 Erasmus Mundus master’s degrees. It offers 67 doctoral programs and an average of 640 PhD dissertations are defended per year.
The UAB is committed to improving the professional career of researchers in keeping with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct of the Recruitment of Researchers. This commitment has been recognized by the EC with the HR Excellence in Research Logo.
The UAB’s research covers extremely varied areas of knowledge: animal nutrition and welfare, biotechnology and health, social sciences and humanities, materials and energy, environmental sciences and sustainability, information, and communication technology. This wide range of disciplines integrated into a single campus helps to promote multi-disciplinary research.
UAB’s research activities in 2021 have led to more than 5,454 articles published, 168 national research projects, 40 patents filed and 2 companies hosted at the UAB’s Research Park (PRUAB). It has also received over 85M € from the H2020 Programme of the European Commission including 191 H2020 projects (35 led by the UAB), 25 European Research Council grants and 46 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. The UAB has been awarded with more than 20M € for 136 non-H2020 projects.
The UAB promotes new business projects, focuses on activities associated with local socio-economic needs, and disseminates newly acquired knowledge to collaborate in the social and economic development of the territory. Apart from its own research groups, departments, institutes, research centres and Research Park, the UAB is the hub of the UAB Sphere. The UAB Sphere is a knowledge ecosystem that includes research centres, most of them situated on the UAB’s campus. The UAB Sphere also integrates local businesses, authorities, and the largest hospital network in Catalonia.
