In 2012, the European Commission awarded a Center of Excel ·lència Jean Monnet at the University of Lleida, in recognition of the long and intense career of teaching, research and dissemination on European and international issues that the UdL, in general, and Law studies, in particular, have carried out for many years in favor of European construction and the values of integration.

The concession of the Center, which I have the honor of directing, has made it possible to continue the work already started in 2008, when the European Commission awarded me a Jean Monnet Chair, which with the name: "Law and External Relations of the European Union", has developed during these years a large amount of activities around the process of European integration and the most current international issues. The Center is integrated by an Academic Committee, in which, apart from professors from the UdL, professors from the Universities of Zaragosa and Valencia, which represent a balance between teachers with a very consolidated career and young teachers and researchers.

The Center of Excellence's main objective is to become an instrument bringing together European issues based at the UdL, but equally open to the city and the province of Lleida, without renouncing its projection in the rest of Catalonia and the State, with a clear European and international vocation. Starting from this central idea, the planning of the activities is aimed at achieving broad participation from different sectors, both at the university level and at civil society level.

The impetus and promotion of interdisciplinary research is also one of the Center's objectives, an objective that materializes through research projects (local, regional, state and European), publication of books (five in total), as well as several chapters of collective books and articles in specialized magazines that contribute to the generation and transfer of new knowledge about the process of European construction. Around the Jean Monnet Chair and the Center of Excellence, the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) R+D+I Project has been obtained: "EU-Mediterranean: the impact of the Arab Spring on relations euromediterraneas and in the interests of Spain in the region", and, more recently, the European Project: "Challenges of the European Union: an approach for Senior Students (CEUSS)" of the Program: Jean Monnet Projects. Policy Debate with the Academic World (European Commission), apart from participation in other research projects.

Finally, and within this dimension of impulse and promotion of research, it is worth highlighting that the Research Group: "The United Nations and the European Union in the face of current challenges and threats: reform of the system of global governance, security, cooperation and human rights", was recognized in 2014 as a "Consolidated Group" by the Generalitat de Catalunya. The Group is made up of twenty professors from different Spanish, Italian and Chilean Universities.