Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

The Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) is a public higher education institution located in Spain, with its main campus situated in the municipality of Bellaterra, near Barcelona. It provides a broad range of academic programmes covering undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels across disciplines such as sciences, humanities, social sciences, health sciences and engineering. In addition to teaching, the university engages in research activities that generate knowledge and innovation, and it offers services related to technology transfer, continuing education and cultural outreach to the wider community.

UAB serves a diverse student body drawn from Catalonia, the rest of Spain and numerous international countries, reflecting its role as a centre of learning and research with a significant regional and global footprint. The institution is recognised for its strong emphasis on research excellence, hosting numerous research institutes and centres that contribute to its reputation in fields such as biomedicine, information technology and environmental studies. Its commitment to internationalisation is evident through participation in exchange programmes, joint degrees and collaborative projects with universities and research organisations worldwide.

As an autonomous university under the framework of the Catalan public university system, UAB operates with a degree of self‑governance in academic and managerial matters while receiving public funding from the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Spanish state. The university’s governance structure includes a rector, senate and various councils that oversee academic policy, strategic planning and institutional administration. Ownership remains public, with no private parent or subsidiary entities influencing its core mission.

The university’s resilience was tested in October 2021 when a ransomware attack disrupted its internal networks and campus internet, leading to a prolonged shutdown of servers and affecting remote learning and online services. Despite the incident, UAB maintained that confidential data such as bank details and academic records remained secure on unaffected systems, and it chose to reconstruct its servers gradually rather than pay the ransom, ultimately restoring user passwords after more than a week without evidence of data leaks. This episode highlighted the institution’s focus on security improvements and its reliance on backup systems to support recovery efforts.