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ICCUB member and former director Domènec Espriu has taken office as the new vice rector of research at the University of Barcelona (UB). He is part of the governing team of the recently appointed rector of the UB, professor Joan Elias.

In the recent elections for the Rector’s Office which took place on November 28th and December 1st, Dr. Joan Elias, professor of Mathematics, was elected after having obtained 53,07% of the weighted vote. The new rector took office on December 19 and the following day various vice rectors were appointed, among them the ICCUB member and former director Domènec Espriu.

Domènec Espriu works on particle physics phenomenology. He obtained his doctoral PhD in 1982, and after several postdoctoral and professor positions at the University of Oxford, Harvard University, University of Valencia and CERN, he joined the particle physics group at the University of Barcelona, then lead by the late professor Pere Pascual.

Apart of his contributions to physics as university professor, Dr. Espriu has occupied several other positions. During 2000-2003 he was head of the ECM department at the UB, and during 2004-2007 he was in charge of the Spanish Funding Agency for Particle Physics, supporting, among other contributions, the construction and start-up of the Canfranc Underground Astrophysics Laboratory and the CPAN (National Center for Particle, Astroparticle and Nuclear Physics) project. He was also vice-chairman of the Astroparticle Physics European Coordination Committee during this period, and member of various other committees. Dr. Espriu also promoted the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB), created in November 2006, and became its first director in 2007. During the period 2008-2012 he was the first chairman of the LHC computing scrutiny group by appointment of the CERN Director-General.

The governing team of professor Joan Elias has declared that one of their main objectives is to provide a significant boost to research at the UB. The UB is already the top-ranked Spanish University and the only Spanish University that is a member of the European League of Research Universities (LERU). The so-called UB-100 strategy advocated by the new Rector aims at placing the UB among the top 100 universities worldwide in the medium term.