UDIT appoints Professor Francisco García García as honorary professor
UDIT, University of Design and Technology, has appointed Professor Francisco García García as Honorary Professor of the University as part of the celebration of the Academic Act in commemoration of the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.
A solemn ceremony presided over by the Rector, Juan Cayón, in which the University wished to recognise Francisco García's professional career as a specialist in audiovisual communication and advertising.
Born in Madrid in 1948, Francisco García is one of the most outstanding and respected figures in the academic and university fields of audiovisual communication and advertising.
He is a specialist in the fields of audiovisual narrative, advertising and creativity.
At this event, which was also attended by members of the university community of UDIT -academic, professional and managerial staff of the Institution-, Doctor Juan Carlos Gauli, Director of the Audiovisual and Graphic Creation Area of the University, was in charge of the laudatio of the appointment of the Honorary Professor of UDIT.
During his speech, he stressed that "Paco is an institution in the academic field of international Audiovisual Communication in Spanish-speaking countries. For more than 30 years he has been a guide for all of us who have discovered him. He is an excellent, wise, generous, restless and insatiable director... A generous person who transmits peace and love to all those around him. Love that manifested itself through his incredible career, which began with the youngest children and even led him to teach the elderly".
Dr. Juan Carlos Gauli also wanted to highlight how he discovered Francisco García García and what influence his figure has had on all audiovisual and design degrees in Spain: "I met Paco during my doctorate courses in the Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid in his subject Narrative and Visual Rhetoric. At that time rhetoric, for the majority of academics, was only linked to written narrative, but in his classes we analysed films, series and works of art... In those classes he planted seeds that have since blossomed throughout the world and today there is no institution in audiovisual creation, Communication or Design that does not incorporate a subject on Visual Rhetoric. We, without going any further, have had it in our degrees for years.
Throughout his career, Paco has supervised 185 doctoral theses, making him the person who has supervised the most theses in Spain".
For his part, on receiving this distinction, Francisco García García said "Thank you for this recognition as Honorary Professor awarded to me by the University of Design, Innovation and Technology. Thanks to its President, its Rector, its Secretary General, its Department Directors and to Juan Carlos Gauli Pérez for his Laudatio. It is a gift and a joy, the gift is UDIT's generosity towards me, and the joy I feel is a source of energy. UDIT is a University with an instinct for innovation, with technological aptitude and competence, and endowed with creativity for design. At the same time it is committed to society and sensitive to design ethics, i.e. originality as an efficient surprise and perfection in workmanship as an expression of beauty. Thank you UDIT".
More than a life dedicated to training
Francisco García is the founder of the Scientific Association for Research into New Communication Technologies Icono 14 and the House of Knowledge, a project considered to be a place for reflection, debate and permanent welcome in which gatherings and lectures take place. In 1978 he was awarded the National Prize for Educational Research by the Ministry of Education and Science and has been a lecturer in the Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid in subjects such as Audiovisual Narrative and Methods of Creativity, Research Methods and Creative Trends in the Communication of Companies and Institutions, among others.
He was Director of the National Centre for Educational Information and Communication (CNICE) of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, where during his period of work programmes such as "Internet at School" or "Internet Design in the Classroom" were carried out.
Francisco García has also been Head of the educational programme That's English, founding member and President of the Asociación de la Televisión Educativa Iberoamericana (ATEI), President of the Asociación Española de Cine e Imagen Científicos (Spanish Association of Scientific Cinema and Image) and has several six-year research and transfer awards.
He has participated in 33 research projects and has directed doctoral theses at universities such as the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, UNED, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Universidad de Santiago, Universidad de Santiago, Universidad de Sevilla, Universidad de Granada, Universidad de Málaga and Universidad de Huelva.
Editor and founder of 4 renowned research journals such as: Red Digital, Icono 14, Creatividad y Sociedad and Prisma Social.
He has participated in a total of 249 congresses, cycles, seminars and festivals all over the world and has spent time in foreign centres such as Ljubljana, Guimarães, Santiago de Chile, Florence, Warsaw, Rome, Lisbon, Loja, Beijing and Campinas, among many others.
