Pedro Duque is going to cease the rector of the Menéndez Pelayo University | Society
The Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Pedro Duque, is going to cease the rector of the Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP), the physicist Emilio Lora-Tamayo. This professor of Electronics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona had just taken office last January in the presence of Íñigo Méndez de Vigo (PP), the minister who appointed him. It is unknown who will replace him.
A ministry spokesman explains that the decision is made, but that it is not yet effective. The dismissal of Lora-Tamayo, who was president of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in two different periods (2003/2005 and 2012/2017, coinciding with governments of the PP), is one of the points of the day of the next meeting of the patronage of the UIMP.
In the Spanish public universities the rectors are elected by weighted vote of the entire educational community (professors, students and administration and services staff) and only their professors can be candidates. The exception is the UIMP, created in 1932 and which teaches summer and postgraduate courses, which depends directly on the ministry by having a small structure, without cloister and passing students. In his inauguration, Lora-Tamayo claimed Méndez de Vigo greater independence from the university, which celebrates almost all the activity in Santander although its headquarters are in Madrid.
Lora-Tamayo is closely linked to his predecessor in office, the microbiologist César Nombela, known for his controversial positions in the Bioethics Commission. He also directed the CSIC. In the presidency of the CSIC to Loraa-Tamayo he was replaced in 2017 by a woman, Rosa Menéndez, and the idea that Duque will appoint a rector, the first of the UIMP.
