The Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) is a public university established in 1991, located in Tarragona (Spain), with centers in Tarragona, Reus, Vila-seca, Tortosa and El Vendrell. The university consists of 6 campuses, 7 faculties, 3 technical schools and 2 university schools, in which around 1500 lecturers and researchers provide degrees to over 11000 undergraduates and 1500 post-graduate studies. URV offers 59 bachelor and 53 master’s degrees, and 25 Ph.D. track programs, in all knowledge areas: sciences, health sciences, social and legal sciences, engineering and architecture, arts and humanities. It is part of the Campus of International Excellence Southern Catalonia (CEICS), an alliance made up of URV and other public research, science and technology centers, on top of hospitals, and business associations, whose main drive is to serve the priority areas connected with the socio-economic strengths of its environment.
The character of URV as a research-based university excels in many areas, with an emphasis in chemistry, computer science, archaeology, tourism, oenology, energy, economy, law and education. This is confirmed by the figures since, as of 2018, URV published 1400 WoS/SCOPUS articles and it received around 25M€ of financial support, more than two thirds of which came from competitive calls. The teaching, knowledge transfer, and research activity has been recognized by The Times Higher Education Rank 2020, who listed URV among the top 600 universities in the world, and as the 75th university under 50 years of age. The CMTS Leiden 2018 ranking also listed the research impact of URV as the 25th highest among European universities.
Within URV, the CRISES group is one of the top European research groups in security and privacy. Since its formation back in 1994, CRISES has grown to more than 20 members. The mission of the CRISES group is centered in the creation of technologies that conciliate security, privacy and the utility of information systems, and its fields of research address information security issues related to data encryption, data anonymization, cybersecurity and risks, privacy and trust, copyright protection and GDPR. It maintains an association with the UNESCO Chair in Data Privacy, and with the Cristech Industrial Tech Transfer Center. The group holds long a track-record of scientific excellence, and in the span of 30 years it has produced 268 ISI-JCR journal articles, 352 conference papers, 59 book chapters, 30 defended Ph.D. theses, and 21 organized conferences, on top of 6 awarded industrial patents. It has also signed 30 contracts and participated in 75 research projects, 13 of which were developed in European Framework funding programs.