Manuel Castells

(Albacete, 1942)

Professor of Sociology at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), in Barcelona. He is also University Professor and full professor of the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California, in Los Angeles; Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Urban and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught for 24 years; Fellow of St. John's College, University of Cambridge and holder of the Network Society Chair at the Collège d'Études Mondiales, Paris. He was Director of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (2001-2012), full professor of Sociology at the University of Paris, full professor of Sociology at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, at the University of Paris (1967- 1979), professor and director of the University Institute of Sociology of New Technologies at the Autonomous University of Madrid (1988-1993), research professor at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) in Barcelona (1997) and professor of Sociology and Urban and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley (1979-2003). Between 2004 and 2010 he held the position of Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2004-2009), the University of Oxford (2007-2010), Santa Clara University (2008-2010) and the University of Cambridge (2012-2014). Since 2009 he has been a permanent visiting researcher at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, in South Africa since 2011.

He has been a visiting professor at 17 universities around the world and a visiting professor at hundreds of academic and professional institutions in 45 countries. He is the author of 26 books, including the trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, 1996-2003, published by Blackwell and translated into 23 languages. He is also co-author and editor of 22 more books.

He has received, among other distinctions, the Guggenheim Scholarship in 1982; the C. Wright Mills Award from the American Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1983; the Robert and Helen Lynd Award from the American Sociological Association in 1988; the Order of the Lion of Finland and the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Government in 2002; the Ithiel de Sola Pool Prize from the American Political Science Association in 2004; the Order of Santiago from the president of Portugal and the Cross of Sant Jordi from the Government of Catalonia, in 2006; the Gabriela Mistral Order in 2005 from the president of Chile; the National Prize for Sociology and Political Science of Spain in 2008; Holberg Prize 2012 awarded by the Parliament of Norway; the Erasmus Medal from the European Academy, in 2011; the Balzán Prize for Sociology in 2013 by the Balzán Prize International Foundation and the Eulalio Ferrer Prize and the UCLG-Mexico City-Cultura 21 International Prize, in 2014. He has received honorary doctorates from 18 universities in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia, in addition to several honorary professorships and university medals. He is a Numerary Academician of the Royal Academy of Economic and Financial Sciences, an academician of the European Academy, the British Academy, the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. Among other distinguished positions, he was a member of the United Nations Secretary-General's Advisory Council on Information Technology and Global Development, and a member of the United Nations Secretary-General's Advisory Council on Global Civil Society. In 2005 the European Commission appointed him a founding member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council. From 2008 to 2012, he was a member of the Governing Council of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), created by the European Union to stimulate cooperation between universities, companies and society. Since 2020 he has been Minister of Universities of the Spanish government.