In 1995, a group of lecturers and researchers from the Department of Urban Planning, Territory and Landscape (DUTP) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) received the title of Grup de Recerca Consolidat (Consolidated Research Group) from the Generalitat de Catalunya, a distinction that has been renewed ever since.
The members of the GRU have been working together on teaching, research and transfer projects for more than three decades. They have promoted the Official Master's Programmes (now called MBArch, Urbanism line) and the Doctorate in Urbanism (which has been awarded the Mention of Excellence since its creation), and others of an international nature, such as the European Master of Urbanism (2005) and the Master of Landscape Architecture (1982).
In recent years, we have reorganised the tasks of the GRU according to six lines of research. Each of these generally has two people in charge, while the faculty as a whole normally participates in more than one line, thus enriching the joint task and the transversality between the different research areas.
The doctoral students, and fundamentally, the scholarship holders in training (with grants from FI-Agaur, FPI-UPC, FPU-Ministry or others), are considered collaborators of the GRU, actively participating in the research tasks.
The long joint experience of the members in shared teaching and research tasks is the main guarantee of the group's coherence. Likewise, the lines of research linked to the Doctoral Programme constitute one of the pillars that give structure to the group.
The work of the members of the research group has been carried out on several occasions jointly with professors and researchers from other Spanish, European or American universities, through competitive Spanish or European projects, thus seeking not only an interdisciplinary but also an international vision of the issues that affect our cities and territories today. These collaborations are reinforced by the GRU's own professors and researchers who now occupy important responsibilities in other foreign universities.
