The Universitat de València vested him during a joint ceremony with sociologist Saskia Sassen. Josep Massot’s ‘laudatio’ was read by the professor of Catalan Philology Vicent Simbor.

Josep Massot i Muntaner was born in Palma de Mallorca in 1941. He was director of Publications at the Abbey of Montserrat, president of the Historical-Archaeological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans and secretary of the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona, as well as head of publications at the Associació Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes (International Association of Catalan Language and Literature).

Graduated in Romance Philology from the University of Barcelona, he edited the magazines ‘Serra d’Or’ and ‘Randa’. Founder of the Societat Catalana de Llengua i Literatura and of the journal Llengua & Literatura, his extensive work includes more than eighty books that endorse him as a humanist scholar. In addition to the aforementioned, he had received numerous awards, such as the Creu de San Jordi from the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Medalla d'Or from the Consell de Mallorca.