University of Barcelona

About the University of Barcelona

Since it was founded in the year 1450, the University of Barcelona has been a leading centre of education, science and critical thought. The quality of its teaching and research, which have won recognition both inside and outside Spain, complements the UB’s commitment to serving the interests of local society and the country as a whole, and combineswith a demonstrably dynamic, constructive and humanist character that permeates the daily activities of the institution.

Demand from prospective students consistently exceeds the offer of places, with more than 64,000 students enrolling each year at one ofthe UB’s six campuses. In the academic year 2013-2014, students were distributed across 66 bachelor’s degrees, 139 university master’s degrees, 73 doctoral programmes, over 600 postgraduate courses and some 400 on-site and distance lifelong learning courses. A broad selection of courses is offered, covering the many disciplines that make up the principal branches of knowledge: humanities, health sciences, social sciences, experimental sciences and engineering.

The University of Barcelona is also actively involved in the work of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and has fully consolidated the actions of its two campuses of international excellence, the BKC knowledge campus and the HUBc health sciences campus. These initiatives, now into their fifth and fourth years, respectively, serve to bolster institutional policies on research, knowledge transfer and internationalization. The combination of these factors has enabled the UB to maintain its position among the leading Spanish universities in major international rankings.

• Faculty of Biology

  The Faculty of Biology at the University of Barcelona was established in 1974, making it a pioneering institution in Spain. It first appeared as a result of increasing knowledge in the field of life sciences at a time of relentless diversification. Soon other faculties of Biology appeared, vastly improving our capacity to develop better-qualified biology professionals. An obvious example of this was the division of the original Natural Sciences degree into two separate courses, Biology and Geology, more than twenty years earlier in 1952. Both were to become established amongst the science faculties and still exist in many universities.

  Indeed, there is history behind our Faculty of Biology, which is associated to the creation of the Natural History chair at the University of Barcelona in 1899. And perhaps it is no coincidence that this position was held by Odón de Buen (1863-1945), known both for his controversial nature and radical Darwinism. At the time this clashed with strongly conservative feelings that were arising in Barcelona as a reaction to the growth of materialism and atheism in the field of natural sciences. However, that was nothing but an extension of a virulent polemic then spreading throughout Europe. The opening of the main building of the Faculty of Biology in Barcelona in 1982 coincided with the centenary of Darwin's death, and there was an echo of old times in the memorial ceremony that filled the University auditorium with an audience of three generations exuding almost total devotion.

  In Spain the Natural Sciences degree course was long restricted to Barcelona and Madrid until the time of the expansion mentioned earlier. Certainly there were some illustrious teachers, but social impact was practically limited to the training of natural sciences teachers for Spanish upper secondary school education. It was around the fifties when graduates in Natural Sciences, and subsequently Biology, begin to create new centres of fundamental and applied research, primarily under the auspices of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

  Notably, the CSIC actually grew out of the University's Institute for Fishing Research, and achieved national scope. Meanwhile, the training ground for naturalists, and later biologists, began to gain a certain presence in industry and in the field of health. Soon it also began to have an impact in different sectors of the government and public services.

• Faculty of Chemistry

  Contact us, researchers who are interested in our research, industry staff in the sector who want more information about our services, and anyone else who is interested for whatever reason. We hope that you will find the information that you need about our activities, processes and procedures, and that the webpage will be of use to you as a communication tool. 

• Faculty of Economics and Business

• Faculty of Education

• Faculty of Fine Arts

  Fine arts education in this country took its first step towards university status when the former Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts became a faculty and then joined as a part of the University of Barcelona in 1978.

  As the only university faculty giving instruction in the fine arts in Catalonia, we have consistently attracted high demand, with 400 newly enrolled students and 300 graduates each year.

  Since the academic year 2009-2010, our faculty offers six European master's degrees adapted to the European Higher Education Area. University graduates and diploma holders from other countries are welcome to come here and broaden their academic, professional or research experience in areas such as artistic production and research, urban design, typography, heritage conservation and restoration, the visual arts, education, artistic creation and approaches to realism. In addition, we are now expanding our educational offering with four doctoral programs, three of which have received quality awards from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.

  As far as undergraduate studies are concerned, in the academic year 2010-2011 our faculty will complete its transformation with three new EHEA bachelor’s degrees: Fine Arts, Conservation and Restoration, and finally Design. As part of these changes, we will also continue the gradual phasing out of the Spanish llicenciatura degree in Fine Arts.

• Faculty of Geography and History

• Faculty of Geology

  The Faculty of Geology was formally instituted in the year 1974 when the university’s former Faculty of Sciences was divided in five different faculties. Until 1988, Geology was housed in the Historic building in Plaça Universitat; since that year, it has had its premises in the Pedralbes Campus.

  The UB first offered its students studies in geology in the year 1910, when the country's national curriculum instituted the bachelor’s degree Natural Science. This degree was then replaced by two separate degrees, Geology and Biology, in 1953. Today, our faculty’s EHEA bachelor's degree in geology examines the composition, structure, morphology and history of the Earth and the working methods applied to its study. The practical classes are particularly important, and during the period of their degree students complete some 80 days of teacher-guided field studies as part of the program’s core and mandatory course units, as well as being given the opportunity to enrol in an additional 70 days of fieldwork in optional units.

  In the year 1990, the University of Barcelona and the Technical University of Catalonia created together the llicenciaturadegree Geological Engineering, which examines the principles and working methods of geology as these are integrated with technological subject areas in engineering. For this reason, the degree is jointly taught by the Faculty of Geology and by the Technical University of Catalonia’s School of Civil Engineering at Barcelona (ETSECCPB). Undergraduates in this degree program study course units in both centres, which are located in the Pedralbes Campus.

• Faculty of Law

  Studies in Law at the University of Barcelona date back to the very moment at which the institution was founded. In fact, the disciplines of Law and Canons were already being taught at the Estudi General of Barcelona, the forerunner of the UB, in 1450. Today, the Faculty of Law offers not only a bachelor’s degree in Law, but also bachelor’s degrees in Political and Administrative Sciences, Industrial Relations, Criminology, Public Management and Administration, and Security, the last of which is offered jointly with the Institute of Public Security of Catalonia. The Faculty also offers a wide range of postgraduate and doctoral studies.

  The Faculty of Law moved from the Historic Building on Plaça Universitat in central Barcelona to its current location on the Pedralbes Campus in 1958. That was the year in which the main building of the Faculty was completed and received the first FAD prize in recognition of its architectural merit, giving expression to rationalism in the city’s architecture after the Spanish civil war. The building and the spirit of a Faculty engaged in the democratization of the country were a breath of fresh air and of modernity in the dark times of the Franco dictatorship. Later, in response to teaching and research needs, the former Ilerdense residential hall would become part of the Faculty, providing more classrooms and offices, and still later, the Tomàs i Valiente lecture hall building would be built. Lastly, in 2015, construction began on a new building to meet all of the Faculty’s needs for space and to accommodate classes in the bachelor’s degree of Industrial Relations, which is currently being taught in another location on the Pedralbes Campus.

  Less than fifty years have passed since the Faculty of Law was the only one of its kind in Catalonia. Many generations of jurists have passed through its halls, including leading figures in the professional, political, academic and social life not only of Barcelona, but of the entire country. Our Faculty has also had distinguished professors of academic renown nationally and internationally, who have been influential figures in the social and civic sphere. This gives us a robust tradition of which we can be extremely proud, and we believe in it and want to keep it strong. At the same time, all of these elements push the Faculty to look toward the future, adapting to new times and being sensitive to the new demands of the professional world and the society as a whole.

  Tradition and modernity are two values that are very present today in the Faculty of Law. We base our reality on them and we build our academic offering, both our teaching and our research, on their foundations. They are values that help us to face the challenges of the future: to consolidate an offering of bachelor’s degrees and postgraduate studies of recognized quality; to strengthen the Faculty’s training project; to consolidate and increase our international presence, both in teaching (especially through existing dual degree programmes and others currently being planned, and through student exchanges and visiting international students) and in research; to bolster research of excellence and encourage knowledge transfer, and to open the Faculty to the professional world and to the society as a whole in order to channel and meet the demands for training and research as they emerge.

  In this spirit and with this willingness to serve, I encourage anyone who may be interested, whether you are current or incoming students, professionals, academics or researchers, whether you are local or from abroad, or you happen to be citizens interested in our areas of training and specialization: come to the Faculty of Law and get to know us. Be assured that we will endeavour to meet your needs.

• Faculty of Library and Information Science

  The Faculty of Library and Information Science offers an evolving educational program within the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). At the Bachelor’s level, two degrees are offered: Library and Information Science (with 2 delivery options: physical classroom or semi-virtual learning), and Audio-visual Communication, as well as the dual degree (Infocom).

  In the postgraduate area, the Faculty offers three official Master's degrees: one in Digital Content Management, another in School Libraries and Reading Promotion, and a third in Library and Heritage Collections. It also has its own master's degree in Information and Document Management in Businesses, and a postgraduate diploma in the Book Trade. The Faculty also manages a doctoral program in Information in the Knowledge Society.

• Faculty of Mathematics

• Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences

• Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Science

  The University of Barcelona's Faculty of Pharmacy opened its doors more than a century and a half ago, and nowadays welcomes over 2,000 new students every academic year. The only public faculty of its kind in Catalonia, its strategic position contributes to it having a sizeable community of students from a wide range of backgrounds.

  The Faculty is distributed between two campuses. Courses focusing on the various aspects of medicine are taught on the Diagonal Knowledge Gateway Campus, and those generally related to food science are taught on the Torribera Food and Nutrition Campus in Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

  The Faculty aims to offer students quality teaching, highly renowned research activity, and all the resources and services they will need throughout their time at the UB.

• Faculty of Philology

• Faculty of Philosophy

• Faculty of Physics

  The origins of the Faculty of Physics date back to the year 1900 when the Section of Physics was created as a part of the Faculty of Sciences. However, the first doctorate in Physical Sciences by the UB was not granted until 1954, before which PhDs in this subject had to be undertaken in Madrid.

  In 1969, the Faculty of Physics held the first class in the Diagonal building. Due to the split of the Faculty of Sciences in 1974, the UB created the present-day Faculty of Physics. In 1992, teaching of the second cycle of Electronic Engineering began. The recent expansion of the Physics and Chemistry building, started at the beginning of 2006, finally gave the Faculty of Physics spaces of its own that met its needs.

  Our most popular course has always been the bachelor’s degree in Physics, a core science and the motor behind the majority of scientific and technological advances. As stated as a slogan in the Year of Physics 2005, “Physics is the basis of everything”. The Faculty also offers a bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering for Telecommunication, the possibility of graduating jointly in physics and maths, and a range of master’s degrees. Our staff also participate in the teaching of other official degrees managed by different faculties and university schools at the UB or at other universities.

  The teaching staff of the Faculty of Physics dedicate an important part of their efforts to basic or applied research and participate in regional, national and international research projects. Therefore, a defining characteristic of the Faculty is the quantity and quality of its research, as attested to by the numerous individual and collective prizes awarded to the staff. Although a relatively small faculty of the UB, the Faculty of Physics is top ranking in the University in terms of scientific output (articles, patents, etc.) and research income (project funding), which makes us one of leading faculties of the UB for quality scientific research.

• Faculty of Psychology

History of the University of Barcelona

The University was founded under the royal prerogative granted by King Alfonso V of Aragon, in Naples, on 3 November 1450. For forty-nine years prior to this, however, the city had a fledgling medical school (or Estudi General, as the universities were known at that time), founded by King Martin of Aragon, but neither the Consell de Cent (Barcelona's Council of One Hundred) nor the city’s other leading institutions had given it their official recognition, considering it an intrusion on their respective jurisdictions. Alphonse the Magnanimous’ prerogative, though, was granted at the petition of the Consell de Cent, and so the council was always to consider the Estudi General created in 1450 as the city’s true university, since it was very much under its control and patronage.

The process that culminated in the foundation of the Estudi General of Barcelona can be traced back to the end of the fourteenth century, with the opening of a number of schools under the patronage of the City Hall, the cathedral schools and the Dominican convent of Santa Caterina, which established itself as a major cultural centre.

It was King Martín the Humane who set in motion the process that would result in the foundation of the University of Barcelona. In his letter written 23 January 1398 and addressed to the councillors of Barcelona, he informed them that he had sought the Pope’s permission to found a university in the city by Juan Carlos IX

Despite the Consell de Cent's refusal to accept the concession issued by the King to found an estudi general, on 10 January 1401, Martín founded the Estudi General of Medicine in Barcelona under his royal prerogative, granting it the same privileges as those enjoyed by theUniversity of Montpellier.

In another document, signed in Valencia on 9 May 1402, King Martin sought to promote the Estudi General of Medicine with the appointment of a number of teachers of the liberal arts, without which the study of medicine was virtually useless. From that day forth, theEstudi was known as the Estudi of Medicine and the Arts.

The prerogative granted by King Alphonse the Magnanimous in 1450, authorizing the Consell de Cent to found a university in Barcelona, was the culmination of the process initiated in 1398.

The first university in the lands of the Crown of Aragon was founded by king James II of Aragon in Lleida in 1300.

Power and learning have always gone hand in hand. So much so that the discussions concerning the foundation of the first universities were characterized by the clear delimitation of jurisdictional authority. After 1229, and following a series of bloody encounters inParis[clarification needed] that saw grave confrontations between the agents of the university provost and the students, King Philip II of Spain[clarification needed] granted full judicial authority to the university chancellor or rector within the university grounds. Henceforth, the authority of the chancellor came to be symbolized in the maces carried by his two beadles on official occasions. The maces were capped with gold or silver and were borne by public servants during official acts before the king or any other civil or military authority with jurisdiction over a territory, municipality or region.

For a number of reasons, in particular the civil war that raged during the reign of Juan II and the subsequent conflicts involving the peasant farmers, the official Estudi General of Barcelona did not begin to develop until the reign of Fernando the Catholic; but it was underKing Charles I, in 1536, that the foundation stone was laid for the new university building at the top end of La Rambla. From that moment on the university began to carry out its work as normal despite financial difficulties and in-fighting between university teachers, though this was not to stop some illustrious professors from making their mark in their respective fields and creating their own schools of academic followers.[citation needed]

The 1596 Ordinances once more showed the need for reform. These followed hard on the heels of earlier Ordinances passed in 1539 and 1559, in which the competitive examination system for the appointment of professors had been introduced.

This period was brought to a close with the Decree issued on 23 October 1714 by the Royal High Commission for Justice andGovernment of Catalonia - created by the Duke of Berwick - ordering the immediate transfer of the Faculties of Philosophy, Law and Canon Law to Cervera. Barcelona was to keep its Faculty of Medicine and the Cordelles School of Humanities, governed by the Jesuits. Plans to open the University of Cervera did not get underway until 1715 and it did not start its academic work until 1717, as the successor to the six Catalan universities closed down by Felipe V. The first statutes of the new University of Cervera were passed in 1725.

"The University of Barcelona was closed by the Bourbon dynasty after the War of the Spanish Succession from 1714 until 1837". The university was restored to Barcelona during the liberal revolution during the reign of Queen Isabella II. In 1837, the University of Cervera was transferred to Barcelona, the capital of the principality. From that moment forth it was recognized as the cultural home of the fourCatalan provinces.

On its return the University was housed initially in the Convent of Carme, which had been disestablished a few years earlier. Here the Faculties of Canon Law, Law and Theology were provisionally installed. The Faculty of Medicine took up residence in the Royal Academy of Medicine, next door to the Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Thus, all the Faculties were now located in just two streets - carrer Hospital and carrer del Carme.

The inadequate nature of these premises soon gave rise to the need to construct a larger home for the University, and in 1863 work began on Elies Rogent's new building, though it would not be fully completed until 1882. Its construction was to have major repercussions for the city, since it was one of the first buildings to be raised outside the ancient city walls.

Work on the building lasted for more than twenty years, although by 1871 the first lectures were being given there. The clock and the iron bell housed in the tower in the Pati de Lletres— the "Patio of the Arts"— were installed in 1881. Complementing the building work, sculptures and paintings were commissioned either directly from artists of repute or awarded in open competition.

The architectural work and the quality of the building's works of art meant that the historic building was declared a national monument of historic and artistic interest in 1970.

On its completion all the university courses could now be taught in the same building, a construction that brought prestige to the city and one that satisfied what had been an essential need.

Medical sciences continued to be taught at the former Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau. In 1879 the Faculty of Medicine was presented with a project for a new hospital, and after many changes in the plans and suggested locations, it was eventually installed in the Hospital Clinic on the eastern side of the city's Eixample district in 1900. Today, Medicine is also taught on the Bellvitge Campus and at the Hospital of Sant Joan de Déu.

The natural growth of the University of Barcelona has given rise to the need to undertake large-scale building work to meet the growing demands made by student numbers that were unthinkable in the nineteenth century. In response to this growth, the university district ofPedralbes was begun in 1952. The first building to be completed on this new city campus was the Faculty of Pharmacy in 1956 alongside the Sant Raimond de Penyafort and the Verge de Montserrat Halls of Residence.

This was followed by the Faculty of Law in 1958, the University School of Business Studies in 1961, and the Faculty of Economics between 1957 and 1968. Today this district is known as the Pedralbes Campus, while in the nineties the university added the Campus Mundet, housed in some of the buildings of the Llars Mundet. In 2006, the Faculties of History and Geography and the Faculty of Philosophy were moved from the Pedralbes Campus to the historic centre of the city (Ciutat Vella district), in the El Raval neighborhood, and just a short walk from the Historic Building of the University.

The University of Barcelona was the only university in Catalonia until 1971, when the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, comprising the more technical Faculties and University Schools, became an independent entity. In 1968 the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona became the first of several new universities to be set up in Catalonia.

Accreditation

Institutional Accreditation or Recognition - Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, España

Rankings

• UB was considered to be the best University in Spain in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, which ranked the university 148th overall in the world.
• Its subject rankings were: 74th in Life Sciences & Biomedicine, 89th in Arts & Humanities, 87th in Natural Sciences, 143rd in Social Sciences and 175th in Engineering & IT.
• In 2010, according to University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), it is the best university in Spain and 83rd university in the world.

Student Life @the University of Barcelona

Accommodation

UB students can choose from different kinds of accommodation, including the following:

• Halls of Residence. The UB has three halls of residence of its own and a number of private halls of residence are affiliated to the University. In total, these halls house around 2,000 students and are designed to cater specifically to students and their study requirements. Many of them are also equipped with sports facilities.
• The Viure i Conviure Program. This homeshare program promotes and encourages supportive relationships between generations by providing students who want to live close to the UB with a room in an elderly person's house or flat, in exchange for their company. The program is for students under the age of thirty who do not have accommodation or a job in Barcelona.
• Options provided by the Barcelona University Centre (BCU). The BCU is a consortium that coordinates activities to promote Barcelona as an international university town. It offers accommodation for UB students and  temporary visiting students through a reservations centre where people can choose from various types of accommodation: a bank of flats for young people to rent or rooms in shared flats.

Sports

The UB aims to promote regular sports activities to improve physical and mental health and to contribute to a rounded education.

UB Sports offers a wide range of sports classes and provides the university community with facilities including a swimming pool, tennis courts, rooms for sports classes and fitness, football and rugby pitches, a sports centre and an athletics track, among others.

In addition, UB Sports promotes competitive sport, which serves as a point of connection between students from different UB schools and faculties and other universities. The UB's teams have been ranked among the best in Spain for university sports and in the Championship of Catalonia.

UB Sports is one of the sports complexes that has the largest infrastructure in Barcelona. It has around 100,000 m2 of sports facilities and is the centre of leisure, sports and health activities for members of the UB university community.

Culture

Cultural activities play an important part in the university and are aimed at the university community and society in general.

Every year, the UB organizes a program of concerts, an opera, a cycle of cinema and a series of exhibitions to contribute to the dissemination of the University's cultural richness and heritage.

The UB has theatre groups, musical groups and a high quality, amateur symphonic orchestra. Most of the members are university students from the many courses taught at the University. 

The Orquestra Universitat de Barcelona provides an opportunity to play symphonic music within the UB in an engaging and rigorous way and to form part of a group that sees the university as a cultural entity in the broadest sense.

Student advocacy

The UB has always considered advocacy to be extremely important. Consequently, it is involved in two major areas: development cooperation and social action. Over 200 members of the university community work on various solidarity projects, initiatives and actions.

The UB Solidarity Foundation promotes solidarity, social participation, voluntary work, the construction of a culture of peace, human rights and sustainable development cooperation. In addition, the Foundation aims to involve the UB in the international cooperation sector, to make the potential of the UB's resources available to agents of cooperation.

Student associations

The UB considers that activities organized by students, whatever their focus, are one of the best indicators of the university's vitality and modernity. Consequently, the UB aims to support associations and student participation through various measures.

As a member of an association, group or collective, students can get involved with issues that affect students and society in general, discuss them and take action.

There are many associations, groups and collectives at the UB, which can be divided into two major blocks:

• Cultural associations: these address a wide range of subjects through talks, lectures, forums, magazines on various topics and awareness-raising activities in areas such as the environment, human rights, ecology, consumption, the Third World, poverty and deprivation, and the Middle East. In addition, some associations organize activities related to music, theatre, photography, poetry and sports, among others.
• Student representation associations: these represent the students on the various governing bodies and defend their rights and duties. They may work with one or more faculties or schools or the entire University.

The UB provides resources to support all student initiatives, including a virtual space (the XAEE), a physical space (the Hotel d'Associacions), a register of UB associations, groups and collectives, and the possibility of obtaining subsidies.

It is important for students to take part in faculty or school meetings, as this is where decisions are made on actions and how to implement them. Consequently, students can participate in the different governing bodies.

UB students participate actively in various governing bodies, including:

• The Senate, which is the highest representative body in the university community.
• The Board of Trustees, which is the body through which society participates in the University.
• The Student Council, which is the most important body for student activity and is made up of all of the students who form part of the Senate.
• The Studies Committee, of which there is one for every course of group of courses.
• The Faculty Board or University School Board, which is the centre's collegial governing body.

Mon UB, the students' portal

Món UB is a portal for students of the University of Barcelona. It is a space for friendly communication that provides students with tools to facilitate their life as members of the university community. The portal complements the personal, direct and enriching relationships that characterize the life of university students.

In this space, university students have access to news that affects the student body, as well as information on academic matters, mobility, regulations, grants, services, cultural activities and other topics of interest. In addition, the portal provides access to personalized services such as e-mail, access to academic transcripts, online procedures and direct links to course webpages.

Services of the University of Barcelona

Students at the University of Barcelona have access to the best services and support materials for every aspect of their academic lives: a network of libraries boasting the largest catalogue of all the Catalan universities, the chance to learn a wide selection of languages , comprehensive sports facilities, plus the advantages offered by new teaching and learning technologies and institutional subscriptions to leading publications.

The University of Barcelona Library

Coordinated by the Learning and Research Resources Centre (CRAI), the University of Barcelona offers the university community the UB Library, a network of nineteen different library centres located on-campus in the UB's faculties and schools. Its collection of almost two million books and specialist journals in printed and electronic formats makes the UB Library one of the largest in Catalonia and in Spain. 

The UB Library offers its users the following services and resources:

• nineteen libraries equipped with individual study spaces, self-access learning facilities and IT support of different kinds, with opening hours designed to serve the UB community's different needs;
• a varied range of library and information resources;
• historic reserves and current collections in both book and document formats adapted to serve the purposes of teaching, research and study;
• specialized support for teaching staff and researchers;
• experienced staff offering personal attention to students, teachers and researchers.

Language learning

The UB offers a wide range of learning options for more than thirty languages. To find out more about courses and resources that best match your interests, visit Learn languages at the UB.

• The School of Modern Languages (EIM)offers students the chance to study up to 15 different languages from beginner to advanced level at any UB campus throughout the academic year. Around 4,500 students sign up every year for standard, specific or exam preparation courses offered by the EIM.
• The UB Language Services (SL) organizes Catalan courses for more than 2,500 students at beginner and basic levels - addressed to visiting and exchange students from outside Catalonia - and at advanced levels and for specific purposes - for those interested in improving and perfecting their Catalan.
• The Institute of Hispanic Studies provides courses in Spanish as a foreign language and a range of specific-purposes courses, as well as preparatory courses leading to the Diploma in Spanish as a Foreign Language.

Sports

Apart from being one of the largest facilities in the city in terms of sports infrastructure, UB Sports also provides members of the university community with leisure, sports and health installations. 
Its 100,000 sq m of sports facilities host a wide range of directed activities and provide a series of installations for community use, among which are swimming pools, tennis courts, directed activity and fitness rooms, football and rugby pitches, a sports centre and an athletics track. 
UB Sports also promotes competitive-level sport to forge a link between UB students and students from other universities. UB squads have qualified amongst the best university teams in Spain and in Catalan Championships.

IT facilities

Teaching activity at the University of Barcelona is fully supported by the Virtual Campus, an online learning environment adapted to the needs of face-to-face, blended and distance learning models. Students can access the Virtual Campus 24 hours a day to consult syllabuses and course curricula, to deliver their study assignments, complete self-assessment exercises, view their grades and contact their teachers or classmates. 
UB students also have access to the University’s numerous computer rooms across its campuses, equipped with a total of over 2,600 student terminals. The UB also provides Wi-Fi coverage on all campuses.

Publications

The UB office Publications and Editions prepares teaching texts for subjects taught at the UB and texts aimed at supporting the student’s learning process. 
Books are also published to spread knowledge among readers interested in the learning and dissemination of science and research, and the field of teaching and learning. 
The range of published works is tailored to the UB’s teaching and research needs, and guided by the demands of a readership requiring the high-level dissemination of knowledge produced by the University of Barcelona.