Gregorio Monreal, in the second row, along with the Rector of the UPNA ant other members of the university

Gregorio Monreal Zia, emeritus professor of History of Law in the Public University of Navarre (UPNA), has been awarded the 2013 Euskadi Research in the Social Sciences and Humanities category. The award ceremony was presided over by Iñigo Urkullu, the Lehendakari (President) of the Basque Government, and attended by the Rector of the UPNA, Julio Lafuente, the Vice-Rector for research, Alfonso Carlosena, and by a wide representation from the university community.

The 2013 Euskadi Research Prize aims to foment scientific activity and to stimulate, promote and evaluate the efforts of the highly-skilled researchers and teams within the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (Euskadi) or outside it, and whose work has had "an outstandingly positive influence in or on Euskadi".

The Basque Government’s Department of Education, Language Policy and Culture announces the Euskadi Research Prize each year. Every odd-numbered year the award is announced in the area of Social Sciences and Humanities, while each even-numbered one is dedicated to recognising the work of professionals in Science and Technology. The award has a financial prize of 40,000 euros.

The 2013 awards jury, made up of five members of acknowledged prestige in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities, described professor Monreal’s work as an "exceptional contribution to the renewal of historical and legal studies of Euskal Herria". It valued the fact that his research "has shown the importance of Basque public institutions, exponent of the identity of a people and of the permanence of a spirit of freedom and of popular participation over the centuries".

Gregorio Monreal Zia (Etayo, Navarre) is doctor in Law from the Complutense University of Madrid and emeritus professor of the History of Law at the UPNA. He was Rector of the University of the Basque Country (1981-85), President of the Eusko Ikaskuntza-Sociedad de Estudios Vascos, Director of the International Basque Studies journal (RIEV) between 1997 and 2005, and has been Scientific Director of the Foundation for the Study of Vasconia Historical and Autonomous Law since 2003. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the History of Spanish Law Yearbook and also directs the History of Law journal, Iura Vasconiae.

Gregorio Monreal is author of some fifty publications on historical and legal sources about and institutions of the Kingdom of Navarre and the Basque provinces, on the crisis over the historical privileges of these territories, on the history of traditional political thought, and on the problems past and present of university institutions. He is also a fellow of the la Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País, of the Société d’histoire du droit and of the Association française des historiens des idées politiques.

* Elhuyar translation, published in www.basqueresearch.com