Xavier Villanueva Capella is a PhD Student at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His academic background comes from Social and Cultural Anthropology and Art History, and he specialised in Popular Music Studies (MLitt in Popular Music Studies from the University of Glasgow). He is currently working on a thesis about the process of institutionalisation of Popular Music Studies. He also leads a YERUN research project, with the collaboration of Sílvia Martínez, Hugo Castro and Pedro Nunes, focused on diagnosing the current state of Iberian Popular Music Studies. He has joined Barcelona FESTSPACE team as a research assistant since January 2021.