Who are we?

The UPC's business chairs are a means of establishing a strategic, transversal, durable and broad-spectrum collaboration between the UPC and one or more companies, with the aim of developing teaching, research, dissemination, valorization and knowledge transfer objectives in one or more of the UPC's own areas of knowledge. In our case, the driving company, TAIGUA, is a benchmark in the public management of urban water. Its collaboration with the UPC and the numerous research groups in the field of urban hydraulics and infrastructure management will result in the training of professionals and the development of useful solutions for the company itself but also for the sector in general.

THE COMPANY

The water company of Terrassa creates a new virtual office

TAIGUA, Municipal Water of Terrassa, is the local public business entity (EPEL), whose aim is the direct management of water in the city of Terrassa, offering an efficient and high-quality service that safeguards the interests of the entire population.

After completing the process of water municipalization, the entity began its activities on June 1, 2018, once its statutes and governing and administrative bodies were approved by a large majority of the Municipal Plenary, and it started providing the water service on December 10 of the same year.

An EPEL, Local Public Business Entity, is a public law entity with its own legal personality, full legal capacity, its own assets, and autonomy in management to fulfill its purpose and objectives. Therefore, it can carry out all kinds of administrative and disposal acts. It is governed by private law, except in the formation of the will of its bodies, in the execution of administrative powers assigned to it, and in aspects specifically regulated in administrative law rules for such entities.

TAIGUA is dependent on the City Council of Terrassa and is assigned to the department of the City Council of Terrassa that is responsible for the management of the public potable water supply service, which oversees strategic direction, evaluation of activity results, and efficiency control of the entity.

THE UNIVERSITY

The university is the academic core of our chair, contributing knowledge, research, and a dynamic educational community. The Polytechnic University of Catalonia - BarcelonaTech (UPC) is a public institution for research and higher education in engineering, architecture, science, and technology. It awards nearly 6,000 bachelor's and master's degrees annually and more than 300 doctoral degrees.

The Chair is located at the Higher School of Industrial, Aerospace, and Audiovisual Engineering in Terrassa (ESEIAAT). In this school, with more than 120 years of experience, over 4,000 students study across 10 bachelor's and 10 master's programs.

The UPC campus in Terrassa has more than 300 researchers distributed across 28 research groups. The Research Centre in Supervision, Security, and Automatic Control (cs2ac) has extensive experience in urban hydraulics and has collaborated with many companies in the sector as well as research centers and universities worldwide. Specifically, it has had research contracts with TAIGUA, directed an industrial thesis in this company, and participated in competitive projects with it.

UPC in Terrassa begins work on the TR10 building to create 'Espai 24' — Higher School of Industrial, Aerospace, and Audiovisual Engineering of Terrassa. ESEIAAT — UPC. Polytechnic University of Catalonia

OBJECTIVES

Digital Technologies

Apply innovations like AI and big data to improve water management.

Applied Research

Promote scientific and technological studies for intelligent urban water management.

Professional Training

Offer programs to train professionals in operational hydraulics, hydroeconomics, and water governance.

Hydroeconomics

Provide training in engineering and economics to students and professionals who depend on or will depend on urban hydraulic infrastructures.

Sustainability

Align with SDG 6 to help ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all people.

Governance

Ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of water policy implementation while maintaining trust and commitments that guarantee clear and democratic resource management.

Citizen Awareness

Promote social awareness and understanding of water cycle management and policy actions.

Innovation

Support technological and business innovation in water treatment, consumption, and reuse.

OUR TEAM

The UPC-TAIGUA Chair consists of professors-researchers from UPC and professionals from the company to define and create training projects, technology transfer, and outreach. We offer research initiation scholarships to advance the challenges we set. On the other hand, we regularly invite national and international experts for specific tasks.

Learn more about our experts.

	Director: Dr. Ramon Pérez Magrané, associate professor in the Department of Systems Engineering, Automation, and Industrial Computing since 1996. He holds a degree in Physics from UB (1993) and a Ph.D. from UPC (2003). His research and teaching focus on modeling, control, and supervision of systems. Specifically, over the last two decades, he has participated in numerous national and international research and development projects focusing on water networks (calibration, optimal control, leak detection and localization, chlorine modeling, and disinfection byproducts). He has been collaborating with the sustainability unit of EURECAT since 2004. Currently, he is responsible for the Intelligent Control Systems research group (2021 SGR 00395).
	Co-director: Mr. Ramon Vázquez García, civil engineer with business training from the INSEAD business school, has had an extensive career in engineering and infrastructure development in various technical and managerial positions. He has worked at different stages of his career in both the public sector and private companies. He has held various responsibilities in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, particularly in the city of Barcelona, as the designer of the new sewage system, the foundation of the current system exploited by Bcasa, and at the Metropolitan Corporation of Barcelona, as Director of Water Cycle Services, where he structured a team to improve the planning and regulation of metropolitan water services. He carried out a similar task at Aguas Argentinas, on the private side, as Director of Planning and Contractual Regulation. He has been an executive at prominent consultancies such as the Catalan Europroject Tecnologias, Auding Intraesa, the Hispano-Danish Covitrecma, the Mexican Interact, and the French Egis Eau. He is currently the Manager of the public operator Terrassa Cicle de l'Aigua.
	Collaborator: Mr. Albert Manero Camps, graduated in Biology and holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Barcelona (2003). He dedicated 6 years to research before becoming responsible for the Microbiology section of the Public Water Mines of Terrassa for more than 21 years. He has experience in the implementation and maintenance of risk management systems, as the manager of the food safety management system and Food Defense Plans, as well as laboratory quality systems. He is currently a member of the Studies and Projects Service in the Planning and Technology area at the public operator Terrassa Cicle de l'Aigua.
	Collaborator: Martí Rosas Casals is an associate professor at the Department of Thermal Machines and Engines at UPC. From 2014 to 2019, he was the deputy director of the University Institute of Research in Science and Technologies of Sustainability and the director of the official Master's program in Science and Technology of Sustainability, coordinated by the same institute. Since 2023, he has coordinated the doctoral program in Sustainability at UPC. Both his teaching and research focus on the application of modeling methodologies in complex systems, with research outcomes covering many areas related to social, economic, and environmental sustainability, such as the evolution, structure, and dynamics of energy infrastructures, technological innovations, socio-environmental interactions, climate change impacts, or energy security.
	Scholar: David Alcaraz Carrasco, a student of a double degree in mechanical and electronic engineering. He has participated in several research initiation scholarships, in which he assisted in conducting electric arc tests for later identification of a model of its behavior, created teaching materials for master's courses on Industry 4.0, cyber-physical systems, and cloud computing, and developed predictive models for predicting failures in water distribution networks in Catalonia to help implement the medium-term renewal plan. Additionally, he is part of the Space Program Association, where they design a large competition drone while developing AI algorithms for autonomous flight. He is primarily responsible for the structural simulation of various components and coordinates the quality management of all project documents.
	Scholar: Kiara Kristin Rodriguez Uribe, a third-year student in Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Computer Science of Barcelona (UPC), specializing in Information Systems. Within the Chair, she is responsible for web development and design, as well as creating serious games for offering interactive activities. She has acquired knowledge in development autonomously and has collaborated on projects like creating the website for the CS2AC research center (UPC). With this experience, she aspires to expand her skills to become a versatile and innovative professional.