History

The Graduate School of Archives and Records Management of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona was created in 2002 in response to professional demand, which called for a university-level teaching project which would offer the required training in archiving beyond the facet of documentary heritage.

From the beginning, the school has been designed as a centre for teaching, research, consultancy and advice on records and archive management, with an innovative and cutting edge view of the profession and a pioneering initiative in Spain. It was the first organisation on an international level to receive the ISO 30301 standard certificate for records management.

In a sequential and accumulative manner it has offered training which embraces official Master’s degrees, different postgraduate courses, basic courses and tailor-made programmes, both in the classroom and online, in a diverse and plural range of training options for newcomers to the discipline and professionals who wish to update their knowledge. In order to create synergies with other institutions and offer training to an increasingly broad public in terms of origin, collaboration agreements have been signed with universities and with numerous associations and professional organisations both at home and around the world.

In parallel, the school also receives the support and collaboration of the Association of Archivists – Document Managers of Catalonia, and sector companies such as Logisdoc, Artyplan, Agtic, MagmaCultura, Odilo and El Periódico. 

In terms of research the school has led several projects related to the efficiency of records management systems, with the new conception of the term archive and its relation to the arts, science and society, and since 2013 we have had a specific line of research in records and archive management in the PhD programme in Comparative, Political and Social History of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.