Dear UPC community,

It has now been a month since the state of alarm was declared, and I hope that you are all in good health. We have heard news in the past days of the loss of colleagues and people close to us. To all those affected, we offer our condolences and our affection.

As the management team, we have been focusing on providing tools and resources for telework and distance teaching. We will end the academic year at a distance, and this includes assessment, although we have not ruled out that some face-to-face activities may take place in June if the evolution of the epidemic allows it. We have all come together to end the semester in the best possible way. I must say that, from the start, our community’s sense of duty and responsibility has been exceptional.

From our daily checks, we know that distance teaching has been largely implemented at all the schools. We are now mostly focusing on finding solutions to particular cases that have been brought to our attention, as well as introducing procedures that will reduce the number of these cases as much as possible and implementing equity measures.

For reasons of proximity and effectiveness, we have prioritised the schools’ own information channels. For reasons of transparency and consistency, we have centralised agreements, instructions and general guidelines on the UPC website, where they are easy to consult. The many meetings we have had with heads of units have allowed us to respond to problems and petitions as they have arisen, rapidly and in a coordinated fashion.

We wish to inform you that a general channel for enquiries and a website with FAQs, principally for students, have been made available to answer questions efficiently. We have just published a document of recommendations for distance teaching, the aim of which is two-fold: to give the assessment activities legal validity and to safeguard the right to personal data protection.

We are currently working, in conjunction with other universities, with the competent administrations on interuniversity measures involving equity, academic calendars, enrolment, grants and financial aid, etc.

To conclude, we wish to inform you that we have begun to plan for the end of self-isolation, which we hope will be soon but will necessarily be staggered according to the most critical needs and will involve measures designed not to put people’s health at risk.

We will continue to work on all of the above.

In these difficult times I wish you all the very best.

Thank you.

The rector,

Francesc Torres

Barcelona, 17 April 2020