The CREA research group, which has been questioned for years by an alleged case of sexual harassment and abuse of power by its founder, emeritus professor Ramón FlechaThe research group has decided to end its activities. The group announced its dissolution yesterday in a statement released on social media, the day after the University of Barcelona (UB) again referred the alleged harassment by Flecha and others linked to the research network to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Despite this announcement, the group does not admit to any accusations in its statement. In fact, they explicitly state that they feel they are victims of "persecution." The researchers argue that the group is dissolving because it "has been subjected to systematic and continuous harassment" and that those who have remained involved have suffered "persistent discrimination" in public competitions and academic appointments as "punishment" for their work.

The CREA scandal is not new to the ARA newspaper: we have been following it for nine years. Since June 2016, when we published the article "A research group at the University of Barcelona has been denounced, accused of acting like a cult."We have reported on all the latest developments in a case that persistently calls into question the effectiveness of university protocols and control mechanisms, as well as the judicial system itself.

A letter from a group of fourteen people sent to the rector of the University of Barcelona, ​​​​Joan Guardia, denounces the professor – now emeritus – Ramon Flecha to have sexual relations "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality" with "students, interns, doctoral students or subordinates", according to a joint publication by RTVE Noticias, Ràdio 4, Eldiario.es and InfoLibre. This same professor has been legally pursuing the newspaper ARA for five years for having published, in 2016, that his research group, CREA (Community of Research on Excellence for All), had been denounced, accusing it of acting like a cult, a complaint that was eventually shelved after a year.

In 1942, the University of Barcelona (UB) needed artwork to decorate its halls. There was a way to get it without spending any money: National Artistic Heritage Defense Service (SDPAN). When the outbreak broke outCivil War, in July 1936The Generalitat attempted to protect the heritage. To preserve it from bombs, tens of thousands of works were seized and moved to various depots in Barcelona, ​​Olot, Manresa, Vic, Girona, Poblet, Viladrau, and so on. When Franco won the war, the Republicans voluntarily handed over pieces from private and public collections, including monasteries. All of this passed into the hands of the SDPAN (Spanish Nationalist Workers' Union), which, starting in 1939, began returning it to its owners. But many returns were never completed.

Fifteen years ago, researchers Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov of the University of Manchester won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of graphene, the thinnest slice of carbon that can be made, just one atom thick. Its electrical and thermal properties have also made it a material with great medical potential. In fact, it is the material that Inbrain Neuroelectronics uses, the start-up Catalan company that has managed to attract the most money within the ecosystem of the University of Barcelona (UB) Science Park.

The University of Barcelona (UB) has sanctioned a professor (DV) with 18 months of suspension from employment and pay for taking advantage of his position within the institution to have sexual relations with students. During the investigation into the case, which began in September 2023, eight complaints were filed, two of which were past the statute of limitations. The UB has sanctioned the professor for a very serious offense: using his civil servant status to obtain an undue benefit. This measure can still be appealed and conflicts with the favorable court rulings the professor had.

"Mathematics is very creative, it contains great beauty," says Xavier Ros-Oton (Barcelona, ​​​​1988) with a frank smile. Nothing to do, he insists, with what we learn as children at school: calculus, calculus, calculus, equations, formulas, algorithms that you don't know what they're for... That's why, although he did very well as a child and had a mother who taught precisely this subject, the truth is that it didn't appeal to him too much.

One of the main reasons why in recent years there has been an attempt to make university entrance exams the same – or as similar as possible – is that in the State the universities operate with the so-called "single district". The regulations allow a student to access any university in the country, regardless of the autonomous community to which the institution belongs and the place where the applicant completed high school and university entrance exams. The single district also opens the door to greater competition in certain territories that offer degrees that in other parts of the State have fewer places or that have better-rated universities. The clearest example of this dilemma in Catalonia can be seen in the degree of medicine.

For the first time since the ranking QS Quacquarelli Symonds exists, three Catalan universities are among the top 250 positions. The list, which is one of the three most important in the world (along with the Times Higher Education and the University of Shanghai), was published on Tuesday and ranks 1,300 universities according to the academic works published and cited and the opinions of 130,000 academics and 75,000 professionals who work in them. The three Catalan universities are among the 20% of the best in the world.