The General Secretary's Office ensures that the University runs smoothly and achieves its organizational and academic goals.
In accordance with the University of Barcelona Statutes, the General Secretary is responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of the university's administration and compliance with the established policies and regulations. They are the secretary of the University Senate, the Governing Council, the Board of Trustees, the Advisory Board and the UB Group foundations and take the minutes of all meetings that those bodies hold. They also attest the resolutions adopted by the University's collective governing bodies, keeps custody of the minutes and issues certified copies thereof.
Legal Services and Agreements
This unit provides legal advice and support to all areas that deal with legal matters. It also manages the contracts and agreements that the University signs with other institutions.
Electronic Administration, Records Management and Documentary Heritage
This service coordinates and carries out its mission through three offices: the Electronic Administration and Records Management Office, the Historical Archive and Documentary Heritage Office, and the Registry Support Office.
The service promotes the secure and agile use of electronic means to perform university administrative procedures. The challenge is to move towards a digital model that benefits both the University and the people who deal with the service. It also aims to standardize management of the documents it receives and generates as part of administrative procedures. It advises administrative units and preserves and disseminates the document collections held in the University's archives. The service as a whole thus guarantees the University's electronic administration and records management vision, mission and strategy, leveraging and maximizing available resources to meet current and future challenges.
Data protection
The University of Barcelona guarantees data protection for all people who deal with it – students, teaching staff, technical, management, administrative and service staff and, in general, anyone else who might have dealings with our institution – in accordance with current law.
The General Secretary's Office is the body responsible for all personal data processing at the UB. The Data Protection Office is the administrative unit that informs and advises the data controller – the University employees who process personal data – about their obligations under personal data protection regulations. If you would like to contact the data protection officer, you can do so by post at Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585 (08007 Barcelona) or by e-mail at protecciodedades@ub.edu.
Transparency
Transparency is a basic value for the University of Barcelona. The General Secretary's Office monitors and enforces the relevant rules in this regard. Transparency at the University is intended to promote accountability and improve institutional management by ensuring access to public information and encouraging community participation in the University's operation.
The General Secretary's Office is responsible for designing, maintaining and updating the transparency portal and managing the right of access. In both cases, the aim is to create an essential source of knowledge about the institution and an information tool for the university community and society at large by disseminating information (active transparency) and facilitating access to public information (right of access). The Spanish Transparency Law is the basic legal framework regulating these aspects. The University has voluntarily broadened its content and scope. The transparency portal is constantly evolving and regularly updated to ensure fulfilment of its ultimate goal, namely, to promote accountability and transparency in the University's management so that people and the university community can get to know the institution, participate in decision-making and form informed opinions.
Elections
University elections are the basic democratic process by which the university community is organized. Through these electoral processes, it chooses its main representatives and governing bodies: the Rector, the Senate and the Student Councils.
The General Secretary's Office organizes the different general elections and provides support for the electoral processes of the faculties and various departments. Elections are the main channel for participation to make the principle of autonomy and self-organization of the University effective.
University elections are fundamental to university life as they allow students, teaching and research staff, and technical, management, administrative and service staff to have a say and a vote in the decision-making that affects their student, academic and professional lives.
The electoral process is governed by the rules approved by the Senate for each collective or individual governing body of the University's various structures.
University elections are fundamental to university life as they allow students, teaching and research staff, and technical, management, administrative and service staff to have a say and a vote in the decision-making that affects their student, academic and professional lives.
The electoral process is governed by the rules approved by the Senate for each collective or individual governing body of the University's various structures.
Integrity and good governance
The University's integrity and good governance refers to its ability to act ethically, transparently and responsibly for the benefit of society. Both perspectives are essential to promoting society's trust in the organization and ensuring that public benefits and resources are used appropriately and for the benefit of all, including both the university community and society at large.
The General Secretary's Office is responsible for managing the University's integrity, which includes ethical pubic management, managing conflicts related to co-existence, and the fight against fraud. Institutional integrity entails promoting and adhering to the highest ethical standards and sense of public service, as well as ensuring honesty, transparency and accountability in all actions and decisions taken by the institution. It further involves managing conflicts of interest and acting impartially and fairly in all organizational processes and relations with community members. The General Secretary's Office is also responsible for good governance, which refers to how the institution is managed and administered, ensuring impartiality, effectiveness, efficiency and accountability in resource management and decision-making, as well as legal and regulatory quality. This means having clear and transparent processes, as well as mechanisms for participation, control, supervision and accountability.
Nomenclatura
La nomenclatura institucional ha de ser coherent, adequada i accessible, alineada amb una universitat transparent, clara i moderna.
L’estructura complexa de la Universitat de Barcelona, les dimensions de la institució i la diversitat d’àmbits, generen una àmplia nomenclatura pròpia d’ús intensiu.
Aquesta nomenclatura es fa visible en la documentació universitària, en la imatge corporativa, en la senyalització d’espais, en les bases de dades de gestió, etc. La multiplicitat de contextos i la diversitat de persones que la fan servir explica la conveniència de fixar-ne les formes més adequades i garantir, així, una imatge d’unitat, transparència i modernitat institucionals.
L’Omnia nomina és el portal multilingüe que recull la nomenclatura institucional relativa institucions i òrgans de gestió; àrees de coneixement i disciplines; categories i càrrecs; estudis, títols i assignatures; programes i projectes; llocs i espais; etc. Els criteris lingüístics específics que regeix cada tipus de denominació es fan explícits al Llibre d’estil de la Universitat de Barcelona.
Corporate image
The importance of communication and image to institutions, coupled with the need to endow the University of Barcelona with a consistent and coherent visual image that identifies it in its external dealings and reinforces its presence in society, makes it necessary to regulate the various elements of its corporate identity.
The varied structure of our university requires regulation of the diverse identifying symbols and the way they are used in order to ensure a harmonious coexistence between the different applications of the UB brand image
The rules for the use of the brand and corporate identity are applicable to all activities carried out by the University's governing and representative bodies, centres, departments, faculties, research institutes and any other organizational structures, as well as any other entities implementing UB university policy.
The Regulations on the brand and corporate identity of the University of Barcelona, as published in the Corporate identity manual, approved by the Governing Council on 16 July 2025, regulate the UB brand and corporate identity with the following objectives:
- To strengthen a common corporate image and disseminate the institution's corporate identity among the university community, encouraging compliance in the application of the various elements of which it is composed.
- To standardize the printed, digital and audiovisual institutional media that the UB uses to publicize the activities it organizes or participates in.
- To oversee the correct use of the corporate identity by members of the UB community and by external organizations.
- To protect the basic elements of the institution's corporate identity and regulate third-party use of the brand.
The elements that make up the UB's corporate image include, among others, the logo, corporate colours and typography, which represent and identify the institution and reinforce its visual identity.
More information
- Manual of graphic standards (restricted access)
- Corporate downloadable files (restricted access)
- Normativa sobre marca i identitat corporativa de la Universitat de Barcelona
- Interior signage manual (restricted access)
- Regulation on symbols, honours, and protocols
- Graduation gown template (restricted access)
- Instrucció 5/2025 sobre l'ús de la marca del 575è aniversari
- Manual d'identitat corporativa
Procedures
The University's processes are designed and implemented according to an institutional model based on a systemic approach and the premises of the main current management models and systems, in particular, the EFQM model.
To ensure the focus on the design of the process structure, the Integrated Definition for Function Modelling (IDEF0) language is used, which makes it possible to use diagrams to visualize the various processes and subprocesses – in this case, the University's – in an integrated and interrelated way. This complete description of the processes is called a process tree. To facilitate communication, the set of the main processes identified in the tree is also represented on the process map. Once the University's processes (what is done) have been identified, they can be related to the institution's units and services (who does it) to ensure the model fits the reality. This thus provides a consistent core as the basis for both people management and process management and improvement. The General Secretary's Office manages procedures related to the institution, agreements, elections and brand.
Collective bodies
Collective bodies are those made up of several people who work and make decisions together.
Collective bodies are intended to ensure participation and democratic decision-making, as well as guarantee transparency and diverse perspectives. The make-up and specific duties of the collective bodies vary depending on their powers and the type of body in question.
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