The Dénia Ciudad Creativa Foundation signs an agreement with the University of Valencia for the development of the Dénia Humanities Festival

Friday, 20 de May 2022

The mayor of Dénia and president of the Dénia Creative City of Gastronomy Foundation of the Valencian Community, Vicent Grimalt, and the rector of the University of Valencia, María Vicenta Mestre, have signed a framework collaboration agreement this afternoon with the in order to establish a framework of action through specific agreements for collaboration between both entities “in training activities, promotion of research and dissemination of science, of a social and/or culture, the joint edition of publications and the mutual promotion of the activities organized by the parties among the public of interest, as well as any others considered of mutual interest, through the competent university structures in each subject”; and another specific one for the creation, management and promotion of the Dénia Humanities Festival that will be held at the end of next October.

Vicent Grimalt recalled that the declaration of Dénia as a Creative City of Gastronomy by UNESCO in 2015 "marked the beginning of a project to transform the city and its future ambitions" that goes beyond the promotion project of the gastronomy of the region and the revaluation of local products and producers. The appointment of Ciudad Creativa – the mayor pointed out – “has promoted a general strategy of recovery and cultural positioning; a city project to turn Dénia into a university, cultured, intellectual city, which is a meeting place for knowledge and thought for social and territorial development”. This city project has the support of all the municipal groups and the city's business community that make up the Dénia Ciudad Creativa Foundation, he added.

In this context of turning Dénia into a university city and a state benchmark for thought, the Humanities Festival was born, under the direction of the journalist Josep Ramoneda and the coordination of La Maleta de Portbou, a humanities and economics publication. Behind the project are the Generalitat Valenciana and the Dénia Ciudad Creativa Foundation, the company Baleària, the aforementioned Ramoneda and, from today, the University of Valencia.

The academic institution will participate in the festival incorporating professors and members of the university community, such as Adela Cortina or Joan Romero, among others, as lecturers, speakers, interlocutors and presenters of the programmed activities. Likewise, it will regulate academic knowledge in scientific and cultural activities.

At the same time, the signing parties of the agreement will study and establish the conditions of scholarships and aid in the university community to participate in the festival, which will be financed by the Dénia Ciudad Creativa Foundation.

Vicent Grimalt has underlined that the Dénia Humanities Festival "is a project that is not only on the days of celebration, but will have continuity in seminars and meetings that we will do throughout the year, since it has a clear vocation of continuity over time within the framework of Dénia as a university city”.

Along the same lines, the rector of the UV has stated that Dénia "has to be active all year round, taking advantage of the possibilities it has, among them, the promotion of the humanities, a field of knowledge that must be valued, especially among the youngest, to form a citizenry with critical thinking”.

Mestre has also commented that Dénia, as a Creative City of Gastronomy, "is the ideal place to develop complementary training to the Degree in Gastronomy taught by the University of Valencia, under a scientific, research and innovation perspective". In this sense, the rector has been very predisposed to collaboration and has offered the mayor that Dénia have the UV "to develop all these creative initiatives".

The last document signed today by the rector Mestre and the mayor has been a protocol of intentions that will bear fruit in a future collaboration agreement between the University of Valencia and the city council for the development of university projects in Dénia.