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 (co-director of the Chair)

Holds a PhD in Education from the University of Girona and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Arts from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a member of the Spanish Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). He served as Director General for Cultural and Scientific Relations at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), part of Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is Honorary Director of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policies and Cooperation and Emeritus Professor at the University of Girona. In 2024, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts by the Spanish Council of Ministers.

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).

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.

Joan Fuster-Sobrepere (co-director of the Chair)

Senior Professor. Former Director of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Holds a PhD in History from Pompeu Fabra University, a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Institution Management from ESADE Business School’s Executive Education programme. He is a member of the Identicat consolidated research group. His research focuses on the political and cultural history of contemporary Catalonia, with particular emphasis on the city of Barcelona.

Jordi Pardo

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography and History and a Master’s degree from ESADE. He was a member of UNESCO’s Expert Facility on Cultural Policies and Governance (2011–2015) and served on the European Commission’s panel of experts for the European Capitals of Culture programme (2012–2016). He has directed and advised cultural projects in countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has been a visiting professor at several universities in Spain.

Núria Ballester 

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a Master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Management and Museology from the University of Barcelona. She is Director of the Pau Casals Museum and has extensive experience in the management, conservation, research, and promotion of cultural heritage. She is responsible for the management of Pau Casals’s collections and documentary archives.

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, Full Professor of Music and Aesthetics in the Department of Art History at the Universitat de Barcelona.

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, Associate Professor of Global Governance in the Department of International Development, University of Oxford.

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.