The Vice-Rector for Planning, Quality and Strategic Development at UIC Barcelona and Co-Director of the WeCare Chair was formally raised to the position of full professor in a ceremony held on the Sant Cugat Campus on 8 May. The event was attended by Miguel Ángel Cazcarra, president of the UIC Barcelona Board of Trustees, the rector of the University, Alfonso Méndiz, and several members of the Board of Governors, along with family and friends. With this appointment, she becomes the first nursing professional to achieve the University’s highest academic rank.
The ceremony was chaired by Dr Román Pérez, vice-rector for Research, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer at the University, who was tasked with welcoming attendees and introducing Dr Albert Balaguer, full professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and researcher in the WeCare Chair, who presented Dr Monforte's merits.
During the laudatio, Dr Albert Balaguer praised Dr Monforte’s academic, research and leadership career, particularly her ability to lead teams and promote the development of the nursing discipline both within and beyond the University. He also emphasised her commitment to the University’s mission and her approach to leadership, “grounded in discretion, excellence and respect for others”. The newly appointed full professor then delivered her inaugural lecture, in which she revisited her career and scientific contributions, largely focused on two lines of research: end-of-life care and the desire for hastened death, and the nursing discipline.
During her speech, Dr Monforte asserted the relevance of her clinical origins and the transformative value of nursing: “I am a nurse and will continue to be one, and that is a source of pride for me as a professional.” She also discussed how her experience alongside patients with advanced illness sparked her interest in conducting research on end-of-life care and the suffering associated with these stages. This stage was key to the development of her research.
Dr Cristina Monforte boasts a strong academic and scientific career linked to two major lines of research: care for advanced illness and end-of-life care, through which she has helped give visibility and a scientific foundation to the desire for hastened death (DHD), and nursing research applied to both teaching and clinical practice. She has served as principal investigator on six national projects and one European project, published 75 scientific articles and collaborated on four international books.
She is currently leading the European project RAPHAEL, an international consortium of fourteen institutions from nine European countries that is funded by the European Union and focuses on research on end-of-life care. Alongside Dr Joaquim Julià, she also co-directs the WeCare Chair, a national and international benchmark in this field.
In addition to her research tasks, Dr Monforte has held several institutional leadership positions. She served as director of the Department of Nursing at UIC Barcelona for eleven years, a period during which she fuelled the Department’s growth and academic consolidation. She also served as president and vice-president of the National Conference of Deans of Nursing for four and six years, respectively.
Dr Cristina Monforte’s incorporation into the body of full professors at UIC Barcelona acknowledges a career marked by academic excellence, research and a commitment to patient care and represents a major step forward in lending visibility and recognition to nursing within the university context.
