Pallarès obtained 57.77% of the weighted votes in the second round of the elections

Josep Pallarès will be the rector of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili for the next four years after a majority of the university community gave him their support. Pallarès obtained 57.7% of the weighted votes and María José Figueras, 42.23%, in the second round of the elections, which recorded a participation of 25.76%. So Pallarès will be taking over from Figueras, who will not be initiating a second mandate.

Pallarès, who will become rector after the appointment is published in the DOGC, is a professor of Electronic Technology. His main line of research is in organic and polymer solar cells. He is the author of more than 100 publications in international indexed journals and has been principal investigator in European Union and national competitive projects. He was director general for Universities and director general of University and Research Planning of the Catalan Government between 2016 and 2019, after having been vice-rector of the URV in several mandates.

In his speech after the results were made public, Pallarès thanked “the involvement of Mercè Gisbert and María José Figueras  – the other two candidates for rector –  for calmly discussing the future in the coming years” and added that “we extend our hand to everyone to make the URV the best university.” For Pallarès, the strength of the team and the project were decisive factors.

For her part, María José Figueras admitted: “I would like to have consolidated the project, but it has been a difficult period in which management capacity has been limited by the budget extension, as well as the pandemic. She congratulated Pallarès and asked him to be “inclusive with the different ways of seeing the institution”.

The results

Each electoral group has a different weight in the elections for rector, so the results of the elections are weighted: tenured professors with doctoral degrees have a weight of 51%; students have a weight of 20%; administrative and service staff have a weight 17%, and non-tenured teaching and research staff, a group of 998 people, have a weight of 12%.

The new rector is positive about the level of participation “comparable to the majority of Catalan universities that have had electronic votes. The participation of the tenured teaching staff (95.63%) and administrative and service staff (89.51%) has been very high; the participation of other teaching staff (52.33%), very important, and the participation of the students, 17%, is the second highest of the Catalan university system.”

The results and reports of participation in the electronic voting that took place from June 1 to 3 can be consulted on the election website.