BAU has initiated 2021 with changes in the academic structure aimed at aligning the three university cycles of the centre (Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD – a unique proposal in Spain).
Therefore, Dr. Marta Camps, researcher and BAU professor, will be the first director of studies of the centre, a newly created position that will lead the Bachelor’s Degree in Design, the Master’s Degree in Research and Experimentation in Design (coordinated by Dr. Maria Àngels Fortea) and the Doctorate Programme in Design and Communication (coordinated by Dr. Jaron Rowan), the first in this field in Spain.
For the last nine years, Camps has been the head of studies of the Bachelor’s Degree in Design, a position that will now be held by curator, researcher and BAU professor Rosa Pera.
Dr. Marta Camps (Barcelona, 1978) has been an Art professor of the Bachelor’s Degree in Design and coordinator and researcher at the Institute of Political Materialities (IMP) for many years. With a degree in Fine Arts (UB) and a Masters in Contemporary Art Theory and Criticism (UB), she also co-founded and directed a communication and consultancy agency in the fashion field and is the author of several publications on design research.
In January 2020 she defended her doctoral thesis Saber en acción. Undisciplined pedagogical practices in which she questions the disciplinary limits and ways of learning and teaching that take place in art and design classrooms, exploring how to integrate and encourage creativity, curiosity, rigour, bodies and undisciplined knowledge.
According to Camps, the objectives of the restructuration are «to align the three cycles and give them coherence, to define a common project and at the same time give each programme its own identity; to encourage the team so that each one can find the best place to develop, grow and learn, and to position BAU as a university of reference in creative studies«.
BAU is no exception to the profound transformation we are experiencing in higher education and in the world of design. «For us, crises are opportunities,» says Camps, adding: «BAU makes more sense now than ever. We have always been involved in changes in society and in design as a transformative and mediative driving force».
Camps points out that the «three-cycle projection and the link with Recerca (The research department) make the project richer, more profound and meaningful, because it has many more agents around it, and all the questions and learnings that are made in each cycle will influence the community in a very positive way. Everyone will be enriched».
«I identify very much with BAU’s values, sensitivity, creativity and the way of doing things», explains Camps, who has been linked to the centre for more than a decade; «it is part of my way of understanding the world and I represent it with great enthusiasm and affection».
The new academic organisation structure of BAU, with Dr. Marta Camps as director of studies and Rosa Pera as the head of studies, reinforces the structure of the centre, the only one in Spain that offers the three university cycles – Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctorate – in the fields of education and research in Design.
