L'audàcia del coneixement: 50 anys UAB

Commemorating half a century of existence of an institution as relevant as a public university can be neither a simple formal procedure nor a purely nostalgic exercise. The social relevance of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, one of the main higher education and research centers in Spain, makes it necessary—when reviewing its history—to place special emphasis on evaluating the work achieved and the intellectual effort dedicated by the thousands of people who have been part of it over these fifty years. We believe it is an obligation, as well as a great opportunity, to analyze the UAB's trajectory in some depth, assess its academic and civic significance together with its scientific contribution, and to do so with the clear intention of gaining a comprehensive overview of the work accomplished across all fields during this half-century. For this reason, this book—a collective work by more than fifty people—was conceived as a tool to facilitate this reflection among UAB members themselves; to compel us to share and contrast experiences and perspectives, and subsequently synthesize them in order to explain how we have reached where we are today.