Francisco Chico Rico started his degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Alicante in 1978. He graduated in 1982 with the Undergraduate Degree Special Award and became a PhD in 1986. Since 2003 he has been professor of the Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature knowledge area at the University of Alicante.

In 1983 he started his teaching and research activity at this University after being awarded a University Researcher Training grant by the Ministry of Education and Science. His links with the University of Alicante as a lecturer and researcher continued later as an assistant lecturer and as a senior university lecturer. He has also been a lecturer and researcher at Italian universities (Università degli Studi di Trieste) and German universities (Universität/Gesamthochschule Siegen and Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf), where he has taught History of Spanish Literature and Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature.

Regarding university management, he has been academic secretary of the University of Alicante's Faculty of Arts from 1993 to 2002, deputy director of the Department of Spanish Studies, General Linguistics and Theory of Literature from 2007 to 2009 and director of the same Department from 2015 to 2019.

He has been a Spanish member of the Council of the "International Society for the History of Rhetoric" (ISHR) and a member of the Board of Trustees of the "Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra" Foundation. He is currently President of the "Organización Iberoamericana de Retórica" (OIR) and Vice-President of the "Sociedad Española de Retórica" (SE-Ret).