Teaching
A benchmark in educational innovation
The Department of Medicine and Life Sciences (MELIS) is committed to fulfilling the objectives of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences to provide high-quality training in higher education.
This Faculty was born on the premises of a common and innovative project which was initiated by the Dean under the support of a technical unit. This project has been very successful in achieving excellent teaching of generic and specific competencies of the Faculty graduates. The teaching of Department members has been repeatedly recognized by several prizes awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (four Vicens Vives awards in 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2013) as well as the Spanish Government (Prize to the Teaching Innovation in 2006).
The degree in Human Biology began in 1998 with an innovative teaching methodology. Small size classes, problem-based learning, student tutoring, high content of practical skills and continued evaluation were combined for high-quality education.
The study programmes of MELIS became the reference at UPF because of the implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) methodology. According to the U-Ranking 2017-2018 (Fundación BBVA-Ivie, which integrates indicators in teaching, research and technological innovation), the UPF is the 1st university in Europe. Furthermore, in the Times Higher Education ranking (2018) it is the 17th highest-ranked university in the world among those under 50 years of age; and 1st Spanish university (position 140 worldwide and 60 in Europe). Regarding the World University Rankings 2017-2018 by Subject, the UPF is the 2nd university in Spain for clinical, pre-clinical and health.
Finally, our Medicine students have obtained excellent resident positions at the national contest (around 80% of them are consistently ranked in the 1st and 2nd quartiles), which means to always be placed among the top 5 Spanish universities. Moreover, our centre has been considered the first university in our country for the obtention of the MD degree (BBVA Foundation) in the last two years.
Bachelor Degrees
Master’s programmes
Bioinformatics for Health Sciences
The Master’s programme in Bioinformatics for Health Sciences is designed to provide professionals and researchers with skills and abilities geared towards the development of new computational strategies and IT systems for their use in annual-report-biomedical research.
Biomedical Research
The Master’s degree in Biomedical Research focuses on the study of the molecular, cellular, physiological and evolutionary bases of biological processes and their pathological or adaptive alterations, and is mainly aimed at students who wish to obtain a PhD in different fields of Biomedicine.
Clinical Analysis Laboratory
This master’s programme focuses on the application of laboratory techniques for clinical diagnosis and presymptomatic and predisposition testing. Students will study aspects related to clinical and environmental microbiology, biochemistry, immunology, clinical and multifactorial genetics, molecular genetics applied to forensic diagnostics, and genetic counselling and assisted reproduction techniques, and to the clinical assessment and interpretation of results obtained with laboratory techniques.
Public Health
The primary objective of the master’s programme in Public Health is to enable students to understand health and disease processes and their determinants from the point of view of the population and to address health issues by means of collective interventions to promote, protect and restore health.
Master of Multidisciplinary Research in Experimental Sciences- MRES (coordinated with the BIST)
The programme offers highly flexible and personalized hands-on research training in a multidisciplinary research environment. In addition to the research aspect, the master’s will also develop talented scientists through experiential training in professional skills such as scientific communication, project management, responsible research and innovation.
PhD in Biomedicine
The PhD Programme in Biomedicine forms part of the UPF Doctoral School and provides graduate students with a training framework to develop a research project and complete a doctoral thesis in the fields of health and life sciences that allows them to become scientists. More than 400 doctoral students are currently enrolled in the programme, most of them conducting their research in public institutions within the PRBB. The UPF’s PhD programme in Biomedicine follows the latest regulations for doctoral studies in Spain, the so-called Royal Decree (RD) 99/2011, which were introduced to obey the guidelines and recommendations of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) on doctoral studies. All its training activities are carried out in English and every year the programme attracts a large number of students from abroad. These activities aim at preparing students to become independent researchers seeking a scientific career. Successful candidates will have access to a wide range of academic activities, and ad hoc training in scientific skills, and access to the PRBB Intervals programme, an interdisciplinary education programme for professionals working in the PRBB. The awarded PhD degree complies with the requirements of the Spanish National Agency for the Evaluation, Quality and Accreditation (ANECA) and in February 2019, the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency, AQU Catalunya, awarded the programme the maximum qualification of Excellence Accreditation label.
