Federico Mayor Zaragoza

Federico Mayor Zaragoza
Federico Mayor Zaragoza in 2007.
Minister of Education and Science of Spain
In office 1 December 1981 – 2 December 1982
Preceded by	Juan Antonio Ortega
Succeeded by	José María Maravall
Director-General of UNESCO
In office 16 November 1987 – 12 November 1999
Preceded by	Amadou Mahtar M'Bow
Succeeded by	Koichirō Matsuura
Undersecretary of Education and Science
In office 11 January 1974 – 30 December 1975
Preceded by	Rafael Mendizábal Allende
Succeeded by	Manuel Olivencia Ruiz
Member of the European Parliament
In office 6 July 1987 – 16 November 1987
Constituency	Spain
Deputy in the Cortes Generales
In office 22 July 1977 – 23 June 1978 (Constituent Legislature)
Constituency	Granada
Personal details
Born	(1934-01-27)27 January 1934 Barcelona (Province of Barcelona, Spain)
Party	Union of the Democratic Centre, Democratic and Social Centre
Spouse	María de los Ángeles Menéndez González
Alma mater	Complutense University of Madrid
Occupation	Politician, pharmacist, professor

Federico Mayor Zaragoza (Barcelona, 27 January 1934 – Madrid, 19 December 2024) was a Spanish pharmacist, professor, poet, politician and senior international civil servant, who gained prominence as Minister of Education and Science of Spain between 1981 and 1982 and as Director-General of UNESCO for twelve years, from 1987 to 1999.

Biography

Federico Mayor Zaragoza earned a doctorate in Pharmacy from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Complutense University of Madrid (1958). He began his professional career in academia, attaining the position of full professor of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Granada in 1963, and serving as rector of that University between 1968 and 1972. That same year he obtained the chair of Biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid, a post he held until 2004. He was appointed vice-president of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in 1971 and subsequently served as Acting President (1972–1973). In 1974 he co-founded the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Centre (CBMSO), which he directed until 1978.

He held various political posts. He was undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Science in the period 1974–1975, under the government headed by Carlos Arias Navarro during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. In April 1976 he was appointed president of the Commission for the Study of the Special Administrative Regime of Catalonia, which was to study an autonomous regime for the four Catalan provinces within the framework of the Law on the Bases of Local Government. He took part in the first general election as a member of the UCD, being elected deputy to the Cortes (1977–1978) for the Province of Granada. Later, during the political transition, he served as adviser to the President of the Government (1977–1978), Minister of Education and Science (1981–1982) and member of the European Parliament for the Democratic and Social Centre (1987).

During his time as Director-General of UNESCO

In 1978 he was appointed Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, a post he held until his return to Spain in 1981. In 1987, the 24th General Conference of UNESCO elected him Director-General, a position he held until 1999.

From 2000 he chaired the Culture of Peace Foundation. He was President of the Scientific Council of the Ramón Areces Foundation from 1993. In 2005 he was appointed co-chair of the High-Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. In June 2008 he was appointed President of the Board of Directors of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency. In October 2010, at the time of its founding, the Spanish Government, headed by the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, appointed him president of the International Commission against the Death Penalty; he later became its Honorary President.

He was a member of many national and international organizations, academies and associations, among others: the Spanish Society of Biochemistry (1964), of which he was President (1970–1974), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1965), the Biochemical Society of the United Kingdom (1966), the Royal National Academy of Pharmacy (1975), the Club of Rome (1981), the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (1994), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (1994), the Russian Academy of Sciences (1999), the Georgian Academy of Sciences (1998), the Royal National Academy of Medicine (2002) and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

In the general election of 20 November 2011 he publicly supported the PSOE ticket headed by Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba; likewise, in January 2013, he was one of the public figures who supported a demonstration in Bilbao in favor of moving prisoners of the terrorist group ETA closer to the Basque Country.

Works

In addition to his numerous scientific publications, Professor Federico Mayor published poetry collections: A contraviento (1985), Aguafuertes (1991), El fuego y la esperanza (1996), Terral (1997), Voz de vida, voz debida (2007), Alzaré mi voz (2007), En pie de paz (2008), and several books of essays: Un mundo nuevo (in English The World Ahead: Our Future in the Making) (1999), Los nudos gordianos (1999), Mañana siempre es tarde (1987), La nueva página (1994), Memoria del futuro (1994), La paix demain? (1995), Science and Power (1995), UNESCO: un idéal en action (1996), La palabra y la espada (2002), La fuerza de la palabra (2005) and Un diálogo ibérico: en el marco europeo y mundial (2006), Enfermedades metabólicas (2006), Tiempo de acción (2008).

Titles and honors

He received decorations and distinctions from various countries and was awarded honorary doctorates (honoris causa) by numerous Spanish and international universities.

In 2007 he received the Madre Terra award of the ONES Mediterrània Awards for his career in the struggle for equality, social justice and the defense of the environment.

At the meeting of the Governing Council of the Junta de Andalucía held on 19 February 2008 he was named an adopted son of the region. He received this distinction at a ceremony held on 28 February of the same year at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, as part of the events of Andalusia Day.

See also

• History of pharmacy in Spain
• Union of the Democratic Centre of Granada

External links

• Fundación Cultura de Paz Among other things, biography, activities and publications of Federico Mayor Zaragoza (in Spanish)
• Blog de Federico Mayor Zaragoza (in Spanish)
• Día Escolar de Paz y No violencia Interview, 30 January 2013, in Global Education Magazine.

• Ahora sí, otro mundo es posible Article in El País. July 2009 (in Spanish)
• «Hay que empezar a tener una objeción de conciencia muy seria» Interview in Jot Down (in Spanish)
• "Si no se cumplen las promesas del Gobierno, los científicos tendremos que movilizarnos" Interview – 2005 (in Spanish)
• Don Federico Mayor Zaragoza Interview – 2005
• ¿Por qué una cultura de paz? Interview – 2004 (in Spanish)
• “El mayor acontecimiento del siglo XX fue la Declaración de Derechos Humanos” Interview – 2001 (in Spanish)
• Federico Mayor Zaragoza Interview – 2001 (in Spanish)
• UNESCO Etxea Archived at unescoeh.org Much news in Spanish about Federico Mayor and about UNESCO.