The Demetrio Ribes Chair is one of the institutional and business chairs of the Universitat de València, which are instruments for channelling academic collaboration with public and private entities in various fields, such as teaching, research, innovation and the dissemination of culture. Since its creation in 2003, and under different patrons, its objective has been to promote the research, dissemination and study of the history of transport and its infrastructures, public works, engineering and the structuring of the territory in the Valencian Community or relative to it.

The Chair is known for being one of the pioneering academic initiatives in Spain in the study of the built landscape, the essence of which lies in its insertion in roads and highways, railways, maritime, hydraulic and defence networks amongst others. Its trajectory is characterised by the excellence of its activities around a cultural heritage that it has contributed to identifying, analysing, disseminating and valuing.

The Chair has been directed by two professors of Art History from the Universitat de València: Dr Inmaculada Aguilar, who was in charge of it until 2017, and since then Dr Luis Arciniega. Both have relied on the collaboration of a team of specialists who have developed a rigorous and high quality work.

Over the more than twenty years of existence of the chair, adapting to the needs and preferences of the sponsors who provide the funding, it has undertaken numerous and diverse initiatives with an interdisciplinary bias, as is publicly stated on its website:

• R+D+i research projects: 5 directed. Currently, Cultural Landscape, built and represented (PID2021-127338NB-I00).
• Academic activity through participation in postgraduate courses, university extension courses, conferences and seminars.
• Annual call for the Demetrio Ribes national research award: 20 editions.
• Inventory, cataloguing and digitalisation of documentary collections and heritage assets.
• Advice and development of numerous technical reports, contribution to scientific and advisory committees, etc.
• Publications: 104 printed publications in 11 thematic collections, and 3 in CD/DVD format.
• Exhibitions: 28 that have resulted in 92 different installations in 54 municipalities and 65 exhibition spaces. Most of them in the Valencian Community, but also in Madrid, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Brussels.
• Cycles of conferences and other cultural activities, such as the ‘Walks through Public Works’.
• Digital media: web portal, thematic websites, exhibitions in 3D digital format and several projects classified by GIS.

The Demetrio Ribes Chair is in an excellent position to make its potential and infrastructure available to Valencian institutions and companies which can contribute to its funding for projects of mutual interest.