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The Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) held today at noon its solemn opening ceremony of the 2025-2026 academic year, which included the conferral of an honorary doctorate upon María Dolores Higueras, a pioneering figure in maritime history, underwater archaeology, and the conservation of cultural heritage in Spain.

The event also recognized professors who have recently been appointed as University Chairs and awarded the 2025 Extraordinary Doctoral Thesis Prizes.

“It is an honor that it is here at UPV, for which I have extraordinary admiration”

“This is one of the most beautiful things I have had the good fortune to enjoy in my professional life,” said a radiant and happy Lola Higueras. “For anyone for whom academia has been important, this is the culmination. You can’t ask for more. It is a source of pride, an honor, and above all, that it has been here in Valencia, because I have extraordinary admiration for the UPV, for how it works, for this extraordinary campus… I am happy and deeply grateful for what I have received here,” she added emotionally.

Higueras, who was the first professional female diver in the Spanish Navy and has devoted more than five decades to the study, protection, and dissemination of naval heritage, both tangible and documentary, holds a degree in the History of the Americas from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where she also pursued doctoral studies.

She has also been Professor of Art and Cultural History and Technical Director of the Museo Naval de Madrid, where she has held key posts in conservation and research since 1970. She has contributed to landmark scientific and editorial projects, such as the critical edition of the Expedición Malaspina 1789-1794 and the direction of the work La vuelta al mundo de Magallanes y Elcano.

“Women are the great forgotten of the Spanish presence in the Americas”

Author of more than 200 academic and popular publications, her impact on oceanic culture and maritime history has earned her numerous awards, including the Cruz del Mérito Naval, the PERIPLO Research Prize, and the MADBLUE Prize for Oceanic Scientific Career Achievement.

A key figure in promoting regulations for the protection of underwater archaeological heritage in Spain, her voice has been decisive in incorporating scientific, ethical, and sustainable criteria in the conservation and recovery of submerged heritage.

In recent years, Higueras has focused her research on recovering the historical memory of Spanish women in the Americas of the centuries immediately following Columbus’s arrival, a topic to which she devoted her most recent book, Despertar del Olvido (2024).

“With so many years of work in the archives,” said the Madrid-born researcher, “you realize that women are the great forgotten. They have always been there, playing a key role in the fabric of human life, but history does not acknowledge them; history does not speak of them. Now, we are at a moment in which an important line of research is seeking to recover that history, that female perspective that we so badly need, because women are a key element in the development of human societies.”

“And in the Americas of the 16th century and early 17th century,” she noted, “women played a particularly significant, leading role. We find encomenderas, women running major businesses, governors, women fighting in Tenochtitlan and so many other great battles. Women were present at all times and in all facets of life throughout the great saga of the Spanish presence in the Americas.”

At 80 years of age, Lola Higueras has received recognition that, in the words of her sponsor, Dr. María Victoria Vivancos, not only honors an extraordinary individual but also affirms UPV’s identity “as a university open to the world, to science, and to historical legacy.”

The fourth UPV campus, in Hangzhou, the "Chinese Silicon Valley", underway

In the speech by Rector José Capilla, delivered masterfully by First Vice-Rector Salomé Cuesta, has been highlighted the commitment to stability of a UPV that has created 117 new PDI (Teaching and Research Staff) positions, excluding promotions, and 65 PTGAS (Administrative and Service Staff) positions, and has started the year by approving a “necessary and ambitious Investment Plan that promotes initiatives for the development of the UPV Caramelos site in Ciutat Vella (already underway), the expansion of our Polytechnic City of Innovation, the required upgrades to the Bambú building in Alcoi, the expansion on Tarongers Avenue with the imminent occupation of new UPV premises, and the start (also underway) of construction on the Generación Espontánea building, which will provide facilities and equipment worthy of the creativity and energy of the 67 teams that currently bring together more than 5,000 of our students.”

Likewise, during the speech, the progress made ‘towards the development of the UPV’s fourth campus project, which, after Valencia, Gandia, and Alcoi, we will carry out in Hangzhou (China),’ was highlighted. This city is commonly known as the Chinese Silicon Valley. The speech also emphasized that ‘not by chance, this very week we have received the final report required from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to move forward with the goal of launching it for the 2026-2027 academic year.’

Education, key to peace

Finally, the Rector Capilla's speech referred to the serious international conflicts currently affecting the world, calling for the revival of “collaborative actions and discourses, based on science and technology, and on dialogue and social responsibility, that bring us together and allow us to move forward.”

“We must avoid the simplistic way in which problems and catastrophes are often explained. This prevents us from understanding and developing the appropriate approaches for prevention and necessary action. It even pits us against one another and leads us to deny scientific facts and even matters of common sense. From the university, we must listen to and support accredited voices, and avoid being led astray by discourses often guided by interests that diverge from the public good… I invite our community, our faculty, our researchers, our staff, to shed light and rationality on many issues where it is being lost. And I know how difficult and risky that is in a social climate where polarization, the loss of reference points, and disaffection keep getting worse. Universities must be places of debate where dogmatism is avoided, where we are always open to doubt, to questioning everything, and to not being afraid to defend what science and technology make evident,” she stressed.

The speech concluded by recalling “the university spirit and our obligation to work toward a culture of peace,” she concluded, “promoting these values among our students and radiating them into society. We hold in our hands the greatest potential to change the world: the education of our youth. Let us not waste it.”