[05/02/2020 - 21:06h] Notes of the Director. Weekly Report (VI). COVID-19

Dear Community,

We will soon end the seventh week of confinement with the beginning of a progressive unblockdown but still with considerable uncertainties about the near future. Too often the initial assumptions are quickly denied and the resulting decisions are modified. We will follow closely how the situation evolves. For now we focus on the positive part and a week more we see with joy that the number of hospital discharges of those affected by the COVID-19 is growing. To those of our colleagues who are still in a delicate situation, we send them a lot of encouragement.

As you know, this week the “Plan for the transition to a new normality” of the Spanish Government has been made public this week and, despite the controversy of its “phases”, it is clear that little by little we are moving toward this “new normality” after suffering the stress of confinement and adapting to telework in sometimes precarious conditions.

Also from the Director’s Office we receive news about the unblockdown and the progressive UPC’s activity reactivation Plan. The document is quite advanced and is now being adapted to the criteria and conditionings of the reactivation activity planned. It is necessary to remember that, in the authorities´ opinion, the confinement is still in force (PHASE 0).

However, from the UPC, it is valued as critic the need for exceptional access to buildings to carry out those activities research that can be considered essential regarding on economic, health, or opportunity criteria. An example would be those activities that, if not reactivated immediately, would put at risk the viability of a particular research project.

Therefore, from next week, School’s PDI interested to work full-time on research activities in person will be able to exceptionally access to the facilities; which exceptionally, must be activated as soon as possible by reasons for criticality. This access must be requested in advance with two working days in advance, and will be personal and individual, and must be justified. To activate these accesses, which for the time being will continue to be limited, you must send an email to direccio.eseiaat@upc.edu. In this email it will be necessary to indicate the building to which you want to access, the specific space, days, times, and activities to be carried out and justification of the criticality.

Again we ask for your understanding with the exceptional of the situation and the measures, and we hope that soon we can begin to progressively reactivate the activity and the accesses in a more normalized way.

As for the school’s activity, this week has been short and mainly dedicated to finishing the bulk of synchronous assessments. In general, we did not detect excessive problems in the system and ATENEA has endured well enough, except for a few incidents.

This week the Addendums to the Teaching Guides of the subjects taught in spring have been collected, validated and returned. By now, all of them should be hung in a visible place of each subject in the ATENEA to ensure the public information regarding the assessments.

Also in the field of evaluation, I remind you that next Monday, May 4, is the deadline for the directors to give their approval to the final works (TFGs and TFMs) in order to proceed with their defense in extraordinary call. Online defenses will begin the week of May 11^th. All the necessary information can be found on the School’s website on this new page, and in particular you will find the NEW PROCEDURE for defending TFEs online at ESEIAAT. Remember the specific doubts you have about final works which you can send them through the respective coordinators (tutorial.tfg@upc.edu i tutoria.tfm.eseiaat@upc.edu).

In addition to the information you can find on the web, I would like to remind you that the School has opened a new communication channel: Telegram with the profile “ESEIAAT_UPC”. We encourage you to sign up!

And as we are sure that we will all get out of these, the School continues thinking about the future and this past Wednesday a new Virtual Open Day was held, in this case for the School’s Masters and with a very good participation. We will not stop promoting to fill the School when the new school year begins

I end by thanking the work of the entire School’s community who, despite the difficulties, continue to work to make the impact on our activities as less as possible. Certainly, in many cases the impact will not allow us to reach to the same goals that we could have achieved under normal circumstances. The academic activity (teaching and research) is affected by the current situation in the same way as other activities at the University and in society in general. Even so, with the strength of everyone we will come out because we all add up.

Please stay safe!

Hugs,

Xavier Roca

ESEIAAT’s Director