The Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) is a public university that runs 77 different undergraduate courses, covering a wide range of fields including humanities and arts, social sciences, health sciences, experimental sciences and technological sciences. In addition, UAB offers a total of 87 doctoral programs, and other postgraduate programs, including three Erasmus Mundus master's degrees. UAB has more than 40.000 students and almost 3.000 researchers. UAB co-ordinates a powerful scientific and technological research cluster (the Esfera UAB), which promotes new business projects, focused on its socio-economic surroundings, and the dissemination of newlyacquired knowledge. One of the centres belonging to the Esfera UAB is the Institute of Government and Social Policies (IGOP); the location where the UAB contribution to PACHELBEL will be based. IGOP is a research Group comprising social science researchers, mainly in political science and sociology (Director: Professor Joan Subirats). IGOP research focuses on public policy, governance, social movements and citizen participation, including a number of EC-funded projects.