About us
Barcelona Metròpolis wants to be a tool for stimulating citizen debate on the big questions affecting our future. We want to help provoke thought, and in doing so encourage citizens to help make the decisions that affect their lives.
Proper democratic deliberation requires both time and knowledge. In the confusion and post-truth politics of the present, it isn’t information that’s lacking. Sometimes, there’s even too much of it—but information doesn’t always equal knowledge. To understand the complexity of these fast, turbulent times, we need spaces for careful reflection, for thoughts to be slow-cooked, where citizens can form their own free, judicious opinions.
We know that the future will be decided in cities. Barcelona has shown that it has the creativity and the strength it needs to be a metropolis open to the world. However, for the same reason, it also suffers from the harmful effects of a globalization that often places the interests of certain segregated minorities before those of the community. We want to contribute to the debate on how to build both city and citizenship, and how to improve the quality of our democracy.
Editor
Barcelona City Council
Editing and production
Editing and Publication Council.
Editorial Services Management. Núria Costa Galobart, director
Management
Milagros Pérez Oliva
Editorial coordination
Imma Muñinos Cotaina
Editorial board
Lluís Mauri Roldán
Journalist and director of the Mayor’s Office of Barcelona. He has worked for over 30 years at El Periódico, where he was deputy editor, and at El País. In addition, he headed the Communications Department of the AMB (Barcelona Metropolitan Area).
Sara Berbel Sánchez
Doctor of Social Psychology, writer and trainer. She is currently a strategic advisor to businesses and public administrations, and executive president of the Fundació BCN Formació Professional [Barcelona Vocational Training Foundation]. She has been a municipal manager for Barcelona City Council and managing director of Barcelona Activa SA, among other roles.
Nacho Corredor Sola
Political scientist and political analyst at Cadena SER. He is also a partner at beBartlet and an advisor to the Barcelona Society for Economic and Social Studies (SBEES), an entity within Foment del Treball [a business organisation in Catalonia that advocates for economic and social development], in Madrid.
Daniel Fernández Gutiérrez
Editor and managing director of EDHASA and Castalia Ediciones. He chairs the Royal Board of the National Library of Spain (BNE) and the Spanish Federation of Publishers’ Guilds, and is vice president of the Spanish Centre for Reprographic Rights (CEDRO).
Simona Levi
Multidisciplinary artist, researcher and educator, she is a prominent activist in the fields of free culture, digital democracy and the fight against corruption. She is the founder of the platforms Xnet, FCForum and 15MpaRato.
Lucia Lijtmaer Paskvan
Writer and cultural critic. He regularly writes for El País and El Periódico, collaborates with RAC1 and co-directs the late night “Deforme Semanal”.
David Lizoain Bennett
Economist and Managing Director of Economic Analysis and Forecasting at the Generalitat Government of Catalonia. He has served as an advisor to the Presidency Cabinet at La Moncloa and to the Generalitat’s Presidency Department, as well as the coordinator of Analysis and Forecasting at the Municipal Management of Barcelona City Council.
Pau Luque Sánchez
Essayist, educator and researcher in Legal Philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He regularly contributes to publications such as El País, CTXT and Rockdelux.
Enric Marin Otto
Dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the UAB and professor in the Department of Media, Communication and Culture at the same university. He is a researcher at the UAB Communication Institute (InCom-UAB) and a member of the Societat Catalana de Comunicació [Catalan Society of Communication].
Leire Pajín Iraola
Sociologist and politician. She served as the Minister for Health, Social Policy and Equality from 2010 to 2011. She has also been Director of International Development at ISGlobal, President of the Spanish Network for Sustainable Development (REDS) and President of the EU-LAC Foundation. She is currently a Member of the European Parliament.
Álvaro Palau Arvizu
Co-founder and CEO of Arpa Editores, a publishing house specialising in non-fiction books.
Milagros Pérez Oliva
Director of the magazine Barcelona Metròpolis and member of the editorial team of the newspaper El País.
Joan Pons Pinac
Journalist and cultural critic, as well as a content creator and screenwriter. He has been part of the programming team for the In-Edit music documentary festival and communications director for the Primavera Sound festival.
Llucia Ramis Laloux
Journalist and writer, regularly contributing to outlets such as La Vanguardia, Catalunya Ràdio, SER Catalunya and RAC1. She has published novels and short stories in various anthologies.
Pilar Roca i Viola
Communications director for Barcelona City Council. She holds a degree and a master in Public Management from Esade and she is associate lecturer on the master’s programme in Institutional Relations Management, Events and Protocol of Ramon Llull University.
Marina Subirats Martori
Sociologist specialising in the sociology of education and women. She was the director of the Women’s Institute at the Ministry of Social Affairs and a councillor at Barcelona City Council.
Xavier Vidal-Folch Balanzó
Journalist, founding member of El Periódico and El País/Catalunya, where he writes, in addition to being a collaborator of SER.
Carlos Zanón González
Poet, novelist, columnist, screenwriter and literary critic. He has written numerous works, many of which have been translated into other languages. He is the curator of the BCNegra festival.