The Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) presents the 12th installment of the series dedicated to the most notable academicians of its centenary history, this time to another of his illustrious characters: the remembered professor of Accounting at the University of Barcelona Mario Pifarré (1929-2002). Another of the great figures of science and thought that have been part of the RAED and that the current Governing Board wants to thank, acknowledge and claim, in the conviction that who has no memory, has no future. The selection of these select academics, from all fields of knowledge, is the result of research carried out for the publication of the “Book of the Centenary” of the Royal Academy, published three years ago. Personalities that transcend their historical context to appear today as referents of knowledge.
Doctor in Political, Economic and Commercial Sciences and sworn accountant, Pifarré was one of the first Accounting professors of the Spanish universities when in 1955 he got, with only 27 years, one of the first eight chairs that were convened for the then Schools of Commerce, germ of the faculties of Economic and Business Sciences. An academic field that he would never abandon in his long teaching career, since he retired as professor of Accounting Theory at the University of Barcelona, becoming the benchmark of these studies in Spain and professor of several generations of great economists, professors and businessmen of the country.
Dr. Mario Pifarré
The prestige that he soon gained in the classrooms and with his first publications meant that after just a decade as a teacher the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science appointed him to be part of the commission responsible for the development of the Plan for the Promotion of Teaching Research that it set up the current Spanish educational model until the adoption of the Bologna Plan and he was appointed national education advisor. He was also appointed director of the Center for Economic and Social Studies of Barcelona and first dean of the Faculty of Political, Economic and Commercial Sciences of the University of Barcelona.
His reference publications include “Trabajo Científico sobre Renovación de las Leyes Contables” (Scientific Work on Renewal of Accounting Laws), “Artículos sobre la Naturaleza de las Leyes Contables” (Articles on the Nature of Accounting Laws) and “Artículo sobre la Generalización Económico-Matemática de los Modelos de Renovación” (Article on the Economic-Mathematical Generalization of Renewal Models). Full academician of the Royal Academy of Economic and Financial Sciences, which he chaired since 1989 and until his death, Pifarré was elected honorary academician of the RAED in 1967. After his disappearance, important figures of the Spanish university and company paid tribute to him with the book “Doctor Mario Pifarré Riera: La ciencia de la contabilidad” (Doctor Mario Pifarré Riera: The science of accounting), edited by the University of Barcelona under the coordination of Alfredo Rocafort, full academician and president of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914, who dedicates the Laudatio that opens the work. Academicians such as Oriol Amat, Montserrat Casanovas, Isidro Fainé, Lorenzo Gascón, Enrique Lecumberri, Carlos Mallo, José Juan Pintó and the deceased Juan Antonio Samaranch also participated in the book.
