Following the reading of the official appointment by the Secretary General and the oath of office taken by the Director, Capilla congratulated Ángel Marqués on the renewed confidence of the university community, highlighting the strong support received after a successful first four-year term. The Rector emphasized his leadership, dialogue skills and commitment to faculty, administrative and technical staff (PTGAS), and students.
In his address, José Capilla stated that renewing the School’s leadership “is not merely about ensuring continuity, but about reaffirming the central role of a field of knowledge that forms one of the silent foundations of engineering, architecture and, ultimately, the functioning of our societies.”
He stressed the strategic importance of geodesy, cartography and topography in a context shaped by digital transformation, artificial intelligence and the ecological transition. Technologies such as high-precision GNSS networks, satellite radar interferometry (InSAR), LiDAR sensors and digital terrain models integrated into BIM environments and territorial digital twins, he noted, are essential for smart cities, resilient infrastructures and evidence-based climate policies.
“Artificial intelligence does not replace geometric foundations or data quality; on the contrary, the more sophisticated predictive models become, the more critical the reliability of geospatial information is,” he stated.
Capilla also highlighted the need to strengthen the School’s international strategy in a discipline inherently global in nature, linked to planetary reference systems, satellite constellations and multinational Earth observation programmes. “The international dimension is not an add-on; it is a condition for excellence and a competitive advantage for our graduates,” he affirmed.
Among the main challenges of the new term, the Rector pointed to maintaining academic excellence, updating curricula by integrating artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, attracting students in a challenging demographic context, and reinforcing ties with the productive ecosystem.
In his closing remarks, José Capilla conveyed the full support of the Rectorate team to the Director for the next six years, describing them as a key period for transformation and consolidation of the School’s leadership, a benchmark institution within its field in the Spanish university system.