The Agbar Chair presents the 2nd Prize for the best Master’s Thesis in the field of Sustainable Development

This October 2024, Dr. Toni Aira, director of the Chair of International Studies in Institutional Communication for Development and Sustainable Growth, created by the UPF Barcelona School of Management in collaboration with AGBAR, presented the second Prize for the best Master’s Thesis (TFM) in the field of Sustainable Development. The winner was Marcel Torra, who presented his TFM during the 2023-24 course of the Master’s in political and Institutional Communication at UPF-BSM.

The jury that decided among the numerous candidates who presented their TFMs for the award from various programs at UPF-BSM was composed of the School’s General Director, Dr. José Manuel Martínez Sierra, Dr. Rodrigo Cetina, Associate Dean of Education and Academic Affairs, and Dr. Aira himself as the director. Ultimately, by unanimous decision, the winning project was Torra’s work titled: "¡de-CREIXEM!" A campaign aimed at raising awareness among the Catalan public about the concept of degrowth by Ecologistes en Acció de Catalunya."

The prize aims to promote applied research that addresses sustainability and/or sustainable development, either directly or indirectly, with the goal of promoting and giving visibility to these topics. As Aira emphasized when opening the call, "it aims to be a contribution to deepen, through applied academic research, the knowledge of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, and to provide tools for entities and institutions to work communicatively in this field."

One of the key points in the jury’s decision was the project’s relevance to current issues, which Marcel Torra justified in the following terms: “In the face of an unprecedented ecological crisis on our planet, this work aims to position and give voice within public opinion to one of the most viable and least explored environmentalist proposals by political institutions: degrowth." He added, "Both the Chair and this work address issues related to environmental sensitivity and the unfavorable context in which our planet finds itself. The viability of sustainable development proposed by the 2030 Agenda is one of the central issues of this work."

The third edition of the award for the 2024-25 academic year has already been announced, once again with the aim of promoting applied research that addresses the theme of sustainability and/or sustainable development, either directly or indirectly, with the goal of promoting and giving them visibility.