Carles Pérez Testor, psychiatrist and professor at Blanquerna-URL, took office as rector of Ramon Llull University (URL) on 20 January 2026. He succeeds Josep A. Rom, who was rector of URL from 2022 until his sudden passing in November 2025. Pérez Testor was appointed rector by the Board of Trustees of Ramon Llull University on 25 November 2025, effective from 7 January 2026.

Carles Pérez Testor began his inaugural speech by remembering Josep A. Rom: “We are all aware that it was not time to elect a new rector and we took for granted that Dr. Josep Antoni Rom would continue to lead our university until 2030. (…) Josep has been a key professor for our university. (…) The avalanche of messages of condolence that we have received attests to how much people loved Josep. Because Josep was a man who loved and was loved.”

Pérez Testor has commented on his professional experience at URL, which began 34 years ago and in which he has carried out teaching, research and management tasks in several of its federated institutions. “I think that, from experience, I know our university quite well. Certainly, in the last 40 years, I have focused my work on the clinic, research and teaching”. In this context, Pérez Testor has described its main functions from the perspective of a “doctor, psychiatrist, specialized in couple and family therapy”. It is about “promoting hope“, which “has a key role in the development of the student body, and we teachers have the responsibility to exercise it”; “the containment of fears and anxieties“, especially in view of the data that show an increase in the levels of discouragement, disorders, self-harm and suicide attempts among young people in Catalonia, “in the face of which URL must continue to promote the well-being of its members”; “the generation of love”, because “love is an extraordinary force that moves people to commit themselves with courage and generosity in the field of justice and peace”; and, finally, “promoting thought”, which “requires generating in the university an open, critical and active attitude, which starts from a reading of reality that seeks transformative and liberating results”.

Lluís Recoder, president of the Board of Trustees of Ramon Llull University, explained that the Board of Trustees has trusted Pérez Testor to lead URL and pointed out that Pérez Testor knows this University and this project well: “His academic and management experience, his capacity for dialogue and his commitment to the values that define us, make him the ideal person to lead this new stage. Today he assumes a demanding responsibility, which requires strategic vision, the ability to listen and the willingness to join efforts at a time that requires trust and cohesion”.

Vita Dr. Carles Pérez Testor

Born in Barcelona (1957). Graduate and Doctor in Medicine and Surgery from UAB; specialist in Psychiatry and Diploma in Theology from the Institute of Theology. Trained as an individual psychotherapist and as a Couple and Family psychotherapist at the Vidal i Barraquer Foundation (FVB), where he directed the Psychological Medical Center and the University Institute of Mental Health. Full professor at URL. He has taught at the FVB, the Ateneu Universitari Sant Pacià and the Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sports Sciences (FPCEE) Blanquerna-URL, where he was vice-dean of Research and Doctorate and head of the Department of Psychology. Visiting professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan, Italy). Researcher in the areas of family violence, couple conflicts and adoption. Member of the research group consolidated by the Generalitat de Catalunya: GR de Parella i Família (GRPF) of the FPCEE Blanquerna-URL. Member, among others, of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry, the International Association of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis and the Catalan Society of Family Therapy. He is currently president of the Spanish Association for R&D in Family Therapy. He participated in the constitution of the Thematic Network on Family Violence and the Thematic Network on Adolescence and Sexual Diversity and is currently vice-president of the European Network REDIF (Réseau Européen des Instituts de Famille).