“Spread eastwards along the old sea”The accomplishment of an idea: the AE-Barcelona Knowledge Hub

Abstract

The Academia Europaea was founded in 1988 as an international non-governmental, not-for-profit association. Currently, it has over 4000 elected members from the whole European continent. Among its goals is to provide a pan-European multidisciplinary dimension spanning beyond the borders of the different nations and recognizing the excellence of learned societies and organizations. The Academy has four regional hubs in Wroclaw, Barcelona, Bergen and Cardiff. The Barcelona Knowledge Hub (AE-BKH) was set up in 2013 as the Academia Europaea’s hub for the Mediterranean and Southern European region. It was born under the auspices of three Catalan institutions, the Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona City Council and the Foundation La Caixa. The Institute for Catalan Studies provided its facilities for the location of the headquarters of the AE-BKH. Since its creation, the AE-BKH has developed every year many activities, being the most important the Women’s Week (in March) and the recovery of the Middle Ages’ Disputatio of Barcelona (in November). In addition, other activities have been developed related to significant issues that society faces, always with a multidisciplinary perspective, and covering both sciences and humanities.