Spanish political scientist and internationalist Frigdiano Álvaro Durántez Prados has joined the Fundación Universitaria Iberoamericana (FUNIBER) as director of Institutional Relations and professor at the Universidad Europea del Atlántico (UNEATLANTICO).
Álvaro Durántez Prados (Madrid, 1969), a pioneer in the contemporary trend of Iberophony or Pan-Iberianism -a theory and geopolitical and cooperative tendency that advocates the definition and articulation of a Multinational Space of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from all continents-, has a significant academic and institutional curriculum.
Durántez Prados is Doctor Europeus and Extraordinary Doctorate Award in Political Science from the Complutense University of Madrid-UCM, Diploma and University Master in International Studies (Diplomatic School of Madrid and UCM), Diploma of Advanced Studies and University Master in Higher Ibero-American Studies (UCM), Diploma of National Defense (Higher Center of National Defense Studies, CESEDEN, Spain), and Degree in Law (UCM). In 2019 he joined the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation of Spain as a Corresponding Academician.
He has been a member of working groups at the Elcano Royal Institute of International and Strategic Studies (RIE, Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estratégicos) and at the Spanish Institute of Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Defense of his country (IEEE). He has written several works, essays, books, articles and approaches on International Relations, History, Geopolitics and Institutionalism related to Spain and the Iberian World in general, and is the author of the treatise on Geopolitics entitled Iberophony and Pan-Iberianism. Definition and Articulation of the Iberian World (Última Línea, 2018).
Since the 1990s he has promoted Iberophony in official governmental and intergovernmental spheres, as well as in civil society. In the General Directorate of Foreign Policy for Ibero-America of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation he worked as an advisor, especially for the organization and follow-up of the XV Ibero-American Summit of Salamanca (2005-2006), where the pan-Ibero-American projection of the Ibero-American Community was formally proposed. In the Cabinet of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) he served as advisor between 2006 and 2009, and contributed to articulate the status of observer members of the Ibero-American Conference, which would contemplate its formal preference towards countries with linguistic and cultural affinities.
Between 2009 and 2022, he has carried out institutional advisory functions in Spain as a member of the Advisory Board of Studies and Reports of the House of H.M. the King, a body of constitutional relevance supporting the Head of State.
In 2014 he received the Order of Civil Merit, in the rank of Commander, and a year later he was named Honorary Academician of the Academy of Diplomacy, of Spain, “in recognition of his work in Hispanic geopolitics and, in particular, for his pioneering initiative and permanent activity in the field of pan-Iberianism”.