La Salle Campus Barcelona-URL receives the Gold Medal for Scientific Merit of the Barcelona's City Council for 50 years of Telecommunication studies

La Salle Campus Barcelona-URL received the Gold Medal for Scientific Merit from the Barcelona's City Council recognizing its 50 years of valuable work for scientific and technical development, as well as applied knowledge in the areas of Engineering, Management, Architecture and other disciplines. The Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, delivered the medal to Brother Josep Guiteras Llimona, president of the Fundació Privada Universitat i Tecnologia La Salle, who expressed gratitude for the award on behalf of all those who have participated in the work done by La Salle-URL for the past 50 years as well as the people who made the development of telecommunications possible worldwide. The alderman of Culture, Jaume Ciurana, also attend the event. Josep M. Santos, CEO of La Salle Campus Barcelona-URL, briefly explained the historical background and the milestones achieved by La Salle in the field of education and university education in the last 50 years. La Salle Campus Barcelona-URL celebrates the 50th anniversary of the launch in 1965 of the first university of Telecommunications of Catalonia. At this time, the Brothers of the Christian Schools of La Salle made a commitment, following the needs of the industry, offering the first Telecommunications studies with official recognition in Catalonia. Earlier, in 1903 at La Salle Bonanova had begun with industrial expertise programmes, which stopped in the 30s and were recovered in 1959, as the embryo of what would be the Telecommunications studies. Previous to the creation of the studies, a work and industrial study was carried out in the 60s by contacting the companies and assessing their needs. The conclusion was that 50% of the  Electronics industries at national level were Catalan, despite there not been a centre for training qualified professionals in  Catalonia. Hence the creation of the School and its studies, which have become a benchmark in the field of telecommunications and leaders and innovators from a globally renowned centre. The school went through different stages. A first phase, in which it was as School of Telecommunications connected to Madrid until, 1976. From here a second phase was initiated, from 1976-1991, in which La Salle became School of Telecommunications Engineering (EUETT) attached to the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (later Polytechnic University of Catalonia). It is at this time when students began to occupy prominent places in the industries of Electronics, Computers, Sound, Television and Communication. Finally, in the last stage, from 1991 on, the school has its own and autonomous project, as a founding member of Ramon Lull University. Just then La Salle also created the ETSEEI (Higher Technical School of Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science), which allowed the launching of a large number of Advanced Engineering programs, Masters and Postgraduates, such as Multimedia Engineering, the first in Europe in 1996. Currently La Salle-URL includes technical and scientific areas, especially in the fields of Telematics, Telecommunications, Sound and Image, Robotics, Computer Sciences, Multimedia, Architecture, Engineering and Construction Management, with 6 research groups in close contact with the business world. In total the university offers 12 Degrees, 8 University Masters and 48 Masters. In the next academic year 2015-201 the first official degree in Catalonia in Animation and Visual Effects (VFX) will be launched. You can see pictures of the event on Flickr .