The Tom Sharpe Chair at the University of Girona was created in April 2020, with the dual purpose of cataloguing, conserving and disseminating the documentary collection of the writer Tom Sharpe, as well as promoting both knowledge of his work, on the one hand, and dissemination and promotion of English-language literature within the University of Girona and beyond on the other.

In September 2015, Dr. Montserrat Verdaguer, executor of Tom Sharpe's estate, gave to the University of Girona some 1,200 books from the writer's personal library, as well as numerous original manuscripts and typescripts including letters, diaries, notebooks with personal reflections, variants of various works from his literary oeuvre, some unpublished plays, etc. The arrangement of the books and an initial cataloguing of the dispersed material was undertaken by the UdG’s Biblioteca del Barri Vell, which made it possible to create the library's Tom Sharpe bibliographic collection.

Subsequently, the Chair was born, in the first instance, with the mission of carrying out a much more detailed cataloguing of this entire legacy. This process has been underway since early 2023, and should 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 and is expected to take several years, should also be of use for scholars everywhere who wish to conduct research into the life and work of Tom Sharpe.

Since its inception, the Tom Sharpe Chair 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 consolidate the dissemination 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, scholarships, 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, spreading out to include the city and the counties within the province of Girona, the whole of Catalonia and the international community.