(Barcelona, 1946)
Doctor in biology and socioecologist. He is founder (1994) and president of ERF (Estudi Ramon Folch & Associats). He has been president of the social council of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (2004-2008), general secretary of the International advisory council of the Latin American Forum of Environmental Sciences (La Plata, Argentina) and professor of its UNESCO/FLACAM chair for Sustainable Development (1989 -2006), as well as vice president of the Barcelona Urban Habitat Council. His field of action is research and territorial, urban and energy management from a sustainability approach, an approach that he himself has contributed to defining and developing, both at a theoretical and applied level.
He belongs to the Spanish Chapter of the Club of Rome and in 1978 he became a member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, where he is head of plant ecology. Between 1972 and 1977 he was general secretary of the Catalan Institute of Natural History, which he presided from 1986 to 1990. He has participated in numerous international technical cooperation operations in the environmental and health fields (he was founder and first president of the Interhospital Cooperation Consortium, 1981), mainly in Africa (Senegal, Chad, Ivory Coast, Congo [Zaire], Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean) and in Latin America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Paraguay). He has been president of the administrative board of the Hospital Clínico de Barcelona (1980-1984). Professor of Botany at the University of Barcelona (1968-1975). He directed (1975-1982) the environmental services of the Barcelona Provincial Council and the Generalitat of Catalonia. He has also been a consultant in environmental management for UNESCO, member and secretary general of the Spanish Committee of the MaB / UNESCO Program (Madrid and Paris, 1982-1994), member of the UNESCO Committee for the Follow-up of the Rio Conference (Paris, 1992-1997) and holder of the Chair of Environmental Metatechnics and Socioecology of the Institut Català de Tecnologia (Barcelona, 1996-1998). He has represented Spanish environmental research in the Commission of Organizations and Systems of the European Union (Brussels, 1986).
In 1990 he was awarded the Lluís Carulla Premi d'Honor. He has also received the Narcís Monturiol medal for scientific and technological merit (1991), awarded by the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Alzina Prize (1992), awarded by the Grup Balear d'Ornitologia i Defensa de la Naturalesa, and the Medi Ambient Prize ( 1995), granted by the Generalitat of Catalonia. He was winner of the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona (2004) for the exhibition “Inhabiting the World” and finalist (2006) for the Descartes Communication Prize of the European Union, among other awards.
He participated in Medialab Madrid banquete08 with “Science, networks and art: plastic arts and ecology”.
