[President of the ESADE Board of Trustees, Vice-Rector for International Relations and Student of the URL, members of the Board of Trustees and the Executive Board, Faculty, Students, Alumni],

Bon dia, buenos días, good morning to everyone,

I would like to open the inaugural session of the 2017-2018 academic year by warmly welcoming all the students and faculty who are new to our community.

We begin this year with more participants in all of our programmes than last year, new members of our faculty and a higher percentage of international teaching staff. We are a global academic community. Once again, more than 100 nationalities are represented on our campus. Our community is committed to excellence, rigour and the quality of our programmes, and we would like to reaffirm our desire to help build a fairer, more prosperous, more inclusive and more sustainable society.

This academic event is not the most appropriate context for an assessment of the current political and social situation. Nor is this my role as director general. However, due to the gravity of recent events, I feel obliged to express the concern felt by those of us here at ESADE. Political and social tensions – not to mention tensions affecting the economy and business – are introducing elements of uncertainty that threaten our collective well-being.

Thus, I would like to highlight four values ​​that form part of our institution’s identity, mission and tradition. We would like to see these values play a role in efforts to address the crisis of our collective life and the social fracture that threatens us.

The first value – the precondition for all the others – is peace. Peace of mind and of spirit. Serenity in our conduct, which is essential to address conflicts. The rejection of all violence, both physical and psychological, against one’s antagonist.

The second value is dialogue. A respectful dialogue, based on listening and considering the opinions of others. Real dialogue – not just proclaiming and repeating closed-minded and unyielding positions, but truly striving to reach agreements.

The third value is inclusiveness. Renouncing any ambition towards uniformity, imposition or hegemony. Accepting that our society is plural, that it contains many voices. The steadfast desire not to exclude any of these voices. To make sure that all people and social groups feel free to express themselves and are invited to do so.

The fourth value is respect for the rule of law, the last bastion of our status as citizens. Respect for the law gives us stability and legal certainty, both of which are necessary in order for the economy to function properly and bring about prosperity, progress and social welfare. In a democracy, the laws guarantee the rights of everyone, especially the weakest and most vulnerable among us, who must always be our priority.

We would like to see these values ​​in action, embodied in the conduct of our representatives, and deeply rooted in the hearts and minds of the people, who, as a community of free and equal citizens, work towards a project of coexistence capable of overcoming the current tensions. Here are ESADE, we are ready and willing to do everything in our power to support and contribute to this effort.

Allow me now to pick up the initial thread of my talk and expand on some of our priorities for the new academic year that is now underway.

I want to do that, essentially, from the perspective of ESADE’s mission, which is none other than to educate.  Basically, I’m going to talk about education and I will be referring to some of the main items of our educational proposal for the academic year that we are officially opening today.

ESADE has positioned itself among the best Management and Law schools in the world and it has done so with great effort and thanks to the merit and tenacity of many people over time.  We feel proud to be recognised among educational institutions of global reference.

However, education –like many other sectors– is going through huge transformations.  The way today’s new generations learn has changed dramatically with the combined impact of technology and globalization.  As educators, our commitment to the way our students learn forces us to make great changes, changes we are already putting into practice within the framework of an innovative educational initiative called Student First.  Student First focuses on the experience of the person who is learning because we believe that our work must be centered on precisely this experience.

This effort has an effect across multiple fields. It requires us to incorporate new methods that revolutionize traditional teaching. Our educational innovation center supports dozens of faculty members in their efforts to incorporate this approach into their subjects. We are combining digital content and procedures with face-to-face education. We are abandoning the traditional lecture format and gradually replacing it with much more interactive and participatory class formats. These changes require our faculty to adopt new ways of teaching and require our students to assume a greater degree of responsibility in their own learning process. And, of course, they force us to make major investments in the physical and technological setting where the educational experience takes place.

The experimental dimension of learning is an essential part of these new approaches. Increasingly, we learn by experimenting things, touching them, testing them, experiencing them. We learn by living. In just a few weeks, the Rambla of Innovation on our Sant Cugat campus will open its doors. We have invested nearly €2 million to build this truly transformational environment.

These are not new classrooms. These are five learning laboratories that follow the path from the conception of an idea to the verification of its feasibility, the manufacture of the product, the definition of a business model and finally its transformation into a viable project. Faculty, researchers, students, companies, and academic and technological partners will cross paths on our Rambla, an environment that will facilitate interactions among all who set foot there. 

Moreover, our commitment as educators requires us to renew and deepen one characteristic that has identified us since our founding nearly 60 years ago: our distinctive, firm and engaged commitment to providing an education in solid values. At ESADE, we educate people who have clear ideas and make the most of themselves, with an attitude of responsibility and commitment to society.

This is our DNA. Our main commitment is to strengthen it day by day. If the world is changing, let’s change it – but for the better. Let’s improve our companies, be aware of the social impact of our organisations, and be consistent with our values ​​and priorities. This is the true hallmark of the people who make up the ESADE community.

And this double commitment to innovating and educating in responsibility fits perfectly with the spirit of today’s academic session and our guest speaker.

Cristina Gallach is one of the people who has done the most throughout her career to foster peace and harmony in the world. As a journalist, all of her colleagues agreed that she was one of the best-informed people in the world of global news. Her subsequent career path confirms this. For 15 years, Cristina Gallach served as communications director for Javier Solana when he was the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and when he was the Secretary General of NATO. From 2015 to 2017, she served as Undersecretary General of the United Nations for Communications and Public Information. In this post, she was responsible for designing and coordinating communication strategies for the UN.

Cristina Gallach’s example and the inaugural lecture she will share with us today are fully in line with the best contribution that ESADE can offer to today’s society: a new generation of young people willing to give their best to build a fairer, more prosperous, more inclusive and more sustainable society.

Thank you all very much for being here today. [Now, I would like to invite Cristina Gallach to the lectern to give her talk].