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The acronym CREA comes from the name Community of Research on Excellence for All, but twenty years ago the same acronym, then an acronym, referred to the name Special Center for Research on Theories and Practices Overcoming Inequalities. It was then presented as a research center and now as a research community, but the UB maintains that CREA has not been affiliated with the university since 2020. However, on its website —which until a few days ago was hosted on the UB domain—CREA states that it is part of two research groups , which are indeed part of the university, and Flecha is listed as a member of a third, a social work group . CREA was founded in 1991, according to its website, "with the aim of generating scientific research capable of identifying theories and practices that overcome inequalities and training professionals of the highest teaching and research excellence" and currently has 49 members.
The Government suspends an award to the director of CREA, the controversial research group at the UB.
Sociology professor Marta Soler leads the group founded by Ramon Flecha, who was accused in a letter of having sexual relations with students.
BarcelonaThe Governmenthas suspended "as a precautionary measure"The Career of Excellence award granted this week, within the framework of the Serra Húnter program, to Marta Soler, professor of sociology at the University of Barcelona (UB). Soler is the director of CREA, a research group controversial due to allegations by former members who in 2004 and 2016They declared that it was an abusive group–complaints that endedarchiving– and because its founder, also professor Ramon Flecha, has recently been accused in a letter to the rectorate ofhaving sex "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality"with "students, fellows, doctoral students, or subordinates."
"This decision is made out of institutional responsibility and prudence, given that the department does not have the necessary information to fully assess the suitability of the candidacy," the Ministry of Research and Universities explains in a statement. It adds that "the information that has recently appeared in the media—in reference to the scandal surrounding Flecha and the CREA group—calls into question the confidence in the solidity of the proposal validated by the UB before the latest events were made public."The act of recognition, chaired by the Minister of Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, was held on Wednesday, and just this Friday, a few hours before the Generalitat's statement, Soler had published in X that it was "an honor" to receive the award "from the hands" of the Government of his country.
The Serra Húnter plan aims to promote "the incorporation into Catalan public universities of highly qualified teaching and research staff with merits comparable to international standards." Marta Soler holds a PhD from Harvard University, is vice president of the International Sociological Association (ISA), and has chaired the European Sociological Association (ESA). However, the Universities Department asserts that, "in line with the criteria of rigor, quality, and exemplarity" of the Serra Húnter program, "it considers it necessary to provisionally suspend this recognition."
Marta Soler and Ramon FlechaThey sued the ARAthe year 2020 for the article"A UB research group is denounced, accusing it of acting like a cult.", published by this journalist four years earlier. In the report of the prosecutor who handled the case, the parish priest, Màrius Rubiralta, demanded in a letter that Flecha immediately take "appropriate measures" to ensure that the CREA would modify behaviors such as "the invasion of privacy and interference in strictly personal matters of the interns and their group." 2016 was also archived.
Flecha speaks of a "perverse fabrication"
UB emeritus professor Ramon Flecha, accused last week in a letter to the rectorate of harassing and having sexual relations with students "in a context of clear hierarchical inequality," according to RTVE Noticias, Ràdio 4,Eldiario.esandInfoLibre, reacted this weekend. Flecha defines himself in X as the "world-ranked scientist number 1 in gender violence" and, ina publication on this same networkHe stated that the "serious anonymous accusations" made by a group of 14 people through their lawyer are "totally false and the result of a perverse fabrication based on anonymity," and asserted that neither he nor the UB has received any complaints. The university did admit that it had received the letter and, in fact, met with the victims' lawyers this week.
The accusations against Flecha have generated controversy in the university community.The UB Feminist Assembly has published an open letteraddressed to the university authorities, where it makes an "urgent request for institutional intervention in response to public allegations of abuse of power and sexual coercion linked to the CREA group." The letter demands "the effective suspension of the exercise of power or management functions by those directly or indirectly involved in the reported events," "the immediate opening of an independent investigation" that also studies the events reported in 2004, and that Ramon Flecha be removed from any academic activity. Around fifty entities and research groups and more than 300 individuals, including several professors from the UB itself, have signed the open letter.
On the other hand, seven entities and several individuals, including university professors and researchers,have issued another statementin "support of CREA and Ramon Flecha," where they claim they are the target of "serious slander seeking to damage their personal and collective reputation" and argue that former CREA members who left the group following a commission investigating "inappropriate behavior" toward "young researchers" are behind the accusations against CREA and Flecha. They also assert that "a child abuser" is behind the accusations against CREA and Flecha.
