Rafael Puyol is President of the Board of Governors of IE University in Segovia, and Vice President of the Institutional Relations IE Business School. Furthermore, Rafael is a senior lecturer and Honorary Rector at Complutense University of Madrid.
 Prior to joining IE he served as Rector of Madrid’s Complutense University between December 1995 and 2003, where he also taught Demography in the School of Geography and History. He has served as President (and continues to be a member) of the Population Group in the Association of Spanish Geographers (AGE), and as Vice-President of the Real Sociedad Geográfica, and is Member of the Board of the Spanish Chapter of the Club of Rome, and President and Vice-President of the Universidad-Empresa (University-Business) Foundation and President of the Spanish Seniors Association.
Rafael was also Vice-President of Madrid Complutense University’s General Foundation and is a trustee of a further five foundations and full member of the Hague Club. He has been director and member of the Executive Committee of Portal Universia as well as a member of the selection panel for the Príncipe de Asturias Award of Scientific and Technical Research, a post he has held since 1996, and now is member of the jury of Social Sciences. He was the former Vice-President of the Conferencia de Rectores de Universidades Españolas (CRUE).
He also sits on the Editorial Board of Gaceta de los Negocios and Dinero magazine and the Editorial Board of Nueva Revista de Política, Cultura y Arte. He holds the Grand Cross of Aeronautical Merit, the Grand Cross of Naval Merit and the Grand Cross of Alfonso X El Sabio to Academic Merits. He has been awarded the Gold Medals of Complutense University and the Universities of Prague, Bratislava, Anáhuac (Mexico), Havana and Helsinki, as well as holding honorary doctorates from the Universities of Anáhuac, Norte (Asunción, Paraguay), Ricardo Palma (Lima, Peru), San Antonio Abad (Cuzco, Peru), Panama National University, Interamerican University (Puerto Rico) and Pedro Henríquez Ureña National University (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic).
He was awarded the Commemorative Medal of UNICEF’s 50th anniversary, and is an honorary member of UNICEF’s Spanish Committee.
A specialist in demographics, he has authored numerous publications and papers in his field. Overall, he has published 18 books and over 200 articles.