This January 26, Ricardo Pascale died in his sleep. He was president of the Administrative Board of the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo since 2020, from where he promoted the role of innovation as a driver of development and was a key player in the LAB+ initiative.
Pascale, accountant, PhD in Economics, university professor and plastic artist, was born in Montevideo in 1942. In 1961 he entered the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, from which he graduated with a degree in Public Accounting.
Between 1975 and 1976 he studied at the University of California, where he obtained a Postdoctoral Studies Diploma in Finance. In 2007, he also received a PhD degree in Information and Knowledge Society from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
As part of his professional activity, between 1967 and 1968 he served as director of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works of Uruguay, and until 1984 as its economic consultant.
Throughout his career he has advised several international organizations, such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Organization of American States. From 1985-1990 and 1995-1996 he served as president of the Central Bank of Uruguay.
In the academic field, from 1969 to 2015 he held the chair of Finance at the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración of the Universidad de la República. In 1999, he created the first postgraduate degree in Finance in Uruguay and in 2005, the first master’s degree in Finance in the country. He also served as rector of the Instituto Universitario Politécnico de Punta del Este.
With the intelligence and the search for progress and innovation that characterized him, Pascale wrote several books. Two of them, “Del freno al impulso” (Planeta, 2021) and “El Uruguay que nos debemos” (Planeta, 2023), serve as the theoretical basis for LAB+, an initiative through which the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo promotes the valorization of scientific knowledge through the creation of startups. During these weeks, Pascale was presenting his most recent book, “El Uruguay que nos debemos”.
Pascale was also an outstanding painter and sculptor. His artistic works are present internationally, in Chicago (USA), Lima (Peru), Bonn (Germany) and Alexandria (Egypt). In Uruguay, his works can be found in Montevideo, Colonia del Sacramento, Fray Bentos and Florida.
For his contributions in the field of science and the arts, the Italian government awarded him, in 2005, the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in the rank of Cavaliere. That same year he received the Morosoli Prize, awarded by the Lolita Rubial Foundation in the category of sculptor.
From the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo we deeply lament his death and we accompany his family and friends.
