The Tom Sharpe Chair of Literature at the University of Girona was established in April 2020 with a dual purpose: to catalogue, preserve, and disseminate the documentary collection of writer Tom Sharpe, and to promote both the study of his work and the dissemination of English-language literature within and beyond the University of Girona.

In September 2015, Dr. Montserrat Verdaguer, executor of Tom Sharpe's estate, donated some 1,200 books to the University of Girona from the writer's personal library, as well as numerous original manuscripts and typescripts including letters, diaries, notebooks with personal reflections, variants of his literary works, some unpublished plays, among other materials. The arrangement of the books and the initial cataloguing of the dispersed material were undertaken by the UdG’s Biblioteca del Barri Vell, which led to the creation of the library's Tom Sharpe bibliographic collection.

Subsequently, the Chair was created with the primary mission of conducting a more detailed cataloguing of this entire legacy. This process has been underway since early 2023, and is expected to conclude with the digitalisation of the collection and the possible publication of the most valuable material in bibliographic format.This work, which is being undertaken by the Chair, should also be useful to scholars everywhere researching the life and work of Tom Sharpe.

Since its inception, the Tom Sharpe Chair of Literature at the University of Girona has been working in collaboration with the Tom Sharpe Foundation, based in Palafrugell, the municipality where the English novelist lived for twenty years and where he died, in the village of Llafranc. The Director of the Foundation is a member of the Chair's Joint Monitoring Committee, and the Chair intends to expand the reach of some of its activities, particularly in the Costa Brava and Baix Empordà area.

The other key goal of the Chair is to organise activities (lecture series, grants, prizes, etc.) that contribute to the reflection, knowledge and social dissemination of literature written in English. In this sense, since 2023 a number of initiatives are being consolidated at the University of Girona, extending to the city and the counties within the province of Girona, the whole of Catalonia and the international community.