What proposals can be submitted?

Applications related to master’s or postgraduate projects, work associated with a doctoral thesis, or any research related to the topics of this call can be submitted.

Research proposals must not yet be developed. The development of the project will be carried out once the grant has been awarded.

Candidacies from any nationality are accepted.

Consult all the requirements in the rules.

Each granted research project will receive the amount of €2,000.

In addition to the financial aid, the Pau Casals UNESCO Chair offers:

• Support and assistance in the development of the project by the selection committee, the Pau Casals Foundation team and the UOC team.
• Dissemination and publication of the project through the communication media of the Chair, the Pau Casals Foundation and the UOC.
• Access to the Pablo Casals document collection located in the Nacional Archive of Catalonia.
• Publication of the research work on the Chair’s website and the possibility of publishing it on the Pau Casals Foundation and UOC websites.
• Support and advice in possible job publications.

A selection committee shall evaluate the applications submitted by applying the assessment criteria set out in these rules and shall draw up the respective report. The members of the selection committee are:

Alfons Martinell 

Doctor in Pedagogy from the UdG and a degree in Philosophy and Letters from the UAB. He is currently co-director of the Pau Casals Chair and member of the Spanish Network for Sustainable Development (SDSN). He has been General Director of Cultural and Scientific Relations of the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AECID) of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is honorary director of the UNESCO Chair: Cultural Policies and Cooperation, and professor emeritus of the UdG.

Bernard Meillat 

Musical advisor to the Pau Casals Foundation and artistic director of the Pau Casals International Music Festival. He has been director of Radio Classique in Paris (1991-2005) and Musiq’3 RTBF in Brussels (2006-2012).

Joan Fuster-Sobrepere 

Doctor in History from the UPF and a degree in Philosophy from the UAB. He is currently an associate professor at the UOC, where he directs the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and co-director of the Pau Casals Chair. Founder and director of the Master in Humanities: contemporary art, literature and culture. He is part of the consolidated research group Identicat, and his research has focused on the political and cultural history of Catalonia in contemporary times and especially in the city of Barcelona.

Marc Gil 

He holds a PhD in History from the UB and teaches Contemporary History and Current World at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the UOC. Specialist in contemporary history of the Spanish State (Francoism and transition) and in history of the current world (history of international relations). He has been awarded the Serra d’Or Criticism Prize for Research 2018 in the humanities category in recognition of his work Barcelona in the service of the “New State”. Depuration of the City Council during the first Franco regime. He is a member of the consolidated research group IdentiCat of the UOC.

Miguel Ángel Elizalde

Doctor in Public International Law from UPF and degree in Law (ELDC/ULE). Currently, he is director of the Master’s in Human Rights, Democracy and Globalization (UOC) and Collaborating Professor at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.

Jordi Pardo

Cultural manager and General Director of Pau Casals Foundation. Graduate in Geography and History from the University of Barcelona; EMPA-MBA, Executive Master in Public Administration, and FGAP- Diploma in Management Function of Public Administrations from ESADE Business School, Diploma in Advanced Studies (DEA) at the University of Barcelona, Department of Social Sciences Didactics. He has been managing Director of the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona CCCB; Managing Director of the Empúries Museum and Archaeological Park. In the private sector he has directed and advised cultural projects, development and urban regeneration in different countries of Europe, America and Asia. He has been a member of the European Commission’s Committee of seven independent experts, who evaluate and select the European Cultural Capitals (European Capital of Culture. 2011-2016), and member of the UNESCO cultural policy expert group. UNESCO consultant for the Culture, Development and Governance program (2011-2015).

Núria Ballester 

Graduate in Art History from the UAB and Master in Cultural Heritage Management and Museology from the UB. She is the Director of the Pau Casals Museum and has extensive experience in the fields of heritage management, conservation, research and dissemination. She is responsible for the management of the collections and documentary collection of Pau Casals.

Pepe Reche 

Performer and researcher, teacher and disseminator, and manager of educational and cultural projects. French horn player specialized in early music (ESMUC) and PhD in Musicology (UAB) with the thesis The French horn quartet of the Pau Casals Orchestra. His fields of research interest are around the historical French horn players in Barcelona and their repertoires, as well as the study of the profession of musician between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. He has won the Musical Essay Prize of Juventudes Musicales de Cataluña (JM Catalonia) and FICTA Ediciones.

The musical aesthetic of Pau Casals. Tradition and modernity

Project submitted by Magda Polo

Research context

To understand the fundamental beliefs and aesthetic values that guided the life and musical work of Pau Casals. She will carry out an exhaustive study of the impact of both many of the composers who are undoubted influences on his performances and works, and the currents of thought that ran through his life, from neopositivism to existentialism, including phenomenology. This project aims to fill a gap in the field of research on Pau Casals, and specifically, in his musical aesthetic both nationally and internationally.

Research objectives

• To understand the fundamental aesthetic beliefs and values that guided the life and musical work of Pau Casals.
• Examine how Casals approached musical performance, including technique, emotional expression and relationship to the score.
• To find out what aspects of his interpretative approach reflect his musical aesthetic.
• To analyse the repertoire Casals frequently performed and the works he considered important.
• To discover what criteria influenced his musical choices and how they aligned with his aesthetic.
• To contextualise his work within the period and the most important currents of thought that influenced his aesthetic.
• Examine the legacy and influence of his musical aesthetic on later generations of musicians.
• To highlight how personal convictions were intertwined with his musical aesthetics.

The roles and functions of music in United Nations peacebuilding

Project submitted by John Gledhill

Research context

The use of music as a tool for building peace by various actors in the United Nations (UN) system, including the Secretariat, peacekeeping missions, UNESCO and the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). To date, the ways in which UN actors have used music for peace have not yet been systematically documented, analysed and categorized.

Research objectives

• This research project aims to fill this gap in our collective understanding by achieving two objectives:
  Identifying which UN actors have used music to support peace, and then documenting the various programmes that these actors have carried out.
• Analysing all the projects identified in order to isolate the mechanisms through which UN-supported music programmes could facilitate peace. This analysis aims to create a classification system that can be used to categorize the different UN music for peace projects according to their contributions to peacebuilding.