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The inauguration ceremony will take place next Tuesday, the 28th of January, in the Aula Magna on the UC3M’s Getafe Campus, within the framework of the official University Day event for the academic year 2019/20. During this event, the Exceptional Doctorate prizes will also be awarded and the new UC3M doctors will be inaugurated.

The laudation for Núria Espert will be delivered by lecturer Julio Checa, from the Department of Humanities: Philosophy, Language and Literature Theory at the UC3M. In the case of Nicholas F.R. Crafts, the laudation will be delivered by lecturer Leandro Prados from the Department of Social Sciences at the UC3M.

Núria Espert (Barcelona, 1935) has been acting for nearly 70 years. She made her début when she was very young, only just having turned 15, performing in classic plays by Calderón, Sor Juana de la Cruz and Shakespeare. From the mid-50’s, she began her professional career and since then, has not stopped acting either in our country or abroad. At the beginning of the 60’s she founded her own theatre company with which she achieved many successes. She co-managed the Centro Dramático Nacional with José Luis Gómez between 1979 and 1981. After that, she dedicated a few years to stage directing. At the end of the 80’s, she made her début in Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly, in Covent Garden, London. Her repertoire is abounded with classics and she keeps a special relationship with the plays and poetry of Federico García Lorca, who is always present in her career. Although her acting career is linked to performing arts, she has also participated in eleven films and five television series, among those Lorca, muerte de un poeta (1987), in which she played his admirer Margarita Xirgu. Among her many awards are the Creu de Sant Jordi (1983), the Premio Nacional de Teatro (National Theatre Award) (1984), the premio Princesa de Asturias (Princess of Asturias Award) (2016) and the European Theatre Prize (2018). She is currently touring in the play Romancero gitano by Federico García Lorca, directed by Lluís Pasqual, in which the poet’s verses are combined with memories from the actress’ life about the world of theatre.

Nicholas Francis Robert Crafts (Nottingham, United Kingdom; 1949) studied Economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded with a Wrenbury grant for the best Economics graduate of the University of Cambridge in 1970. He began his academic career when he was 22 years old as a lecturer in Economic History at the University of Exeter and moved to Warwick a year later. His career continued at University College Oxford before becoming a professor of Economic History at the University of Leeds and then returning to Warwick. Between 1995 and 2005, he was a lecturer at the London School of Economics, after which he returned to the University of Warwick, where he is currently emeritus professor of Economics and Economic History. In addition, he has been a visiting lecturer at the universities of Berkeley, California and Stanford. As a researcher, he has published more than 120 articles, more than 80 chapters in academic volumes and 10 monographs on subjects such as economic growth, international economy, geographical economy, labour markets, standards of living and productivity. Among other titles, he has headed the Economic History Society and has managed the Economic History Review, one of the main economic history magazines. He has been presented with various awards, such as the Jonathan Hughes Prize for excellence in Economic History Teaching; he has been named Commander of the British Empire by the Queen of England and has been appointed Fellow of the Cliometric Society. Throughout his extensive academic career, he has been distinguished for building bridges between economics and history.