The objective of the Catalan Family Foundation (FCC) pre-doctoral research grant programme 2007-2011, offered by the FCC Board of Directors, is to provide training and support to novice teachers and researchers in order to augment the number of fulltime professors at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC), and to satisfactorily cover diverse areas of knowledge. The FCC hopes to achieve this objective by awarding 16 pre-doctoral grants. The grant programme will be managed by the Vice Rectorate of Research at the UIC.