The UNED is the biggest public university in Spain with some 200,000 students, close
to 1,400 professors, more than 6,000 tutors and 1,200 Administration and Services Staff,
who from the Central Office and Associated Centers strive on a daily basis to support
the student's march towards the completion of their studies.
Courses offered by the UNED include 28 undergraduate degrees, 11 combined undergraduate degrees,
76 Masters programs and 19 Doctorate Programs, all adapted to the European framework and
set up through the International Doctorate School, founded with the aim of encouraging
international interaction and multi-disciplinary and transversal cooperation among all its
researchers.
Furthermore, the UNED boasts 550 of its own Permanent Training programs, aimed at bettering
and updating personal knowledge, aptitudes and capabilities.
16 language courses from the, Online Long-distance University of Languages; more than 500 University
Extension activities, 170 Summer Courses held throughout Spain and the UNED Senior Program
for those over 55.
Open UNED offers a wide-ranging catalogue of open content and University Access programs
for those over 25, 40 and 45 years old, that allow people who have never before had the
chance, to access higher education.
The UNED is able to offer so many courses thanks to its organizational structure, which
is made up of 9 Faculties and 2 Superior Technical Schools, as well as 61 Associated Centers,
125 university classrooms and more than 700 multimedia romos throughout the country, where
students can go to seek support and tutoring.
What's more, the UNED can be found in 14 countries on 3 continents, with 12 Overseas Centers
and 6 classrooms for exams.
"Wherever you may be” has been the UNED's hallmark since it was founded in 1972 as a
model of distance learning, a formula repeated by many other universities today.
Since then, the UNED has developed technologically.
Long gone are materials sent by post with text books and cassette tapes.
Today, students can follow the tutorials on their mobile devices, attend a class via video
conference and interact with digital whiteboards.
The UNED's educational methodology is based on the combination of long-distance and on-campus
learning, and supported by the use of state-of-the-art educational technology, which means that a
UNED student is never alone, always having access to a large, online community with numerous,
online services at their disposal.
The IUED, University Institute of Long-Distance Learning, is constantly working to improve
the quality of its long-distance learning and to perfect its methodology.
At the UNED, each student is the protagonist of their own education, and it is precisely
this protagonism that is the focus of the European Higher Education Area, which aims
to train professionals capable of responding to the challenges set by our knowledge-driven
society.
With innovative, high-quality educational materials and with the help of professors
and tutors at the Associated Centers, UNED students have all they need to get the best
out of their studies in the most flexible way possible: at their own pace, any time,
anywhere.
New technologies in the field of education allow the UNED to carry out 700,000 on-site
exams every year, all around the world and simultaneously.
This is thanks to the Virtual Mailbag, the UNED's own exam management system, devised
to increase security and speed in the control of on-site exams and save the students waiting
time.
When students identify themselves at an exam center, they are given the corresponding exam,
the amount of time they have, and the seat that has been designated to them.
At the end of the exam, the papers are scanned, sent off to be corrected and the results published.
A similar system allowed the UNED to become the first ever university to examine Spanish
soldiers, who were on a UN Peace Mission at the Lebanese military base, "Miguel de Cervantes".
The success of the experience has meant that other soldiers, stationed in Kabul and Djibouti,
can finish their studies without having to wait to return home.
Equal opportunities is another of the UNED's hallmarks, as it adapts to the personal and
working commitments of each student.
More than 40 % of students with disabilities studying university courses in Spain, do so
at the UNED.
There to guarantee they have the same opportunities are the UNIDIS technicians.
And more than 30 % of the UNED's students assure that they wouldn't be able to study
in any other kind of university.
Furthermore, there is the University Studies Program, carried out in Penitentiary Centers
associated with the UNED, which aims to increase the level of educational and cultural learning
among prisoners.
The UNED's Center of Gender Studies coordinates and promotes teaching and research activities
linked to gender equality.
It sees equality as a key part of the education in a university that was the first to have
a female dean and the only one to have had two women governors.
Research and the transfer of results to society is the objective of any university.
The UNED boasts 111 research groups, covering every area of knowledge, from humanities to
engineering.
A dozen agreements have been reached to appoint chairs to businesses and institutions.
The aim is to join forces and thereby advance the search for solutions to society's current
problems.
Fruit of adopting the concept of I+D+i, the UNED receives around two and a half million
euros a year from innovative projects, some of which are international.
International collaboration is another of the UNED's priorities.
Each year it signs around 20 collaboration agreements with universities and institutions
around the world, such as the Teacher's Training agreement with Ecuador and the European Project
ECO, aimed at designing the MOOCs of the XXI century.
The UNED boasts numerous Services that aim to offer the best possible public service,
such as the UNED's Library, which has been awarded the 400+ European Stamp of Excellence,
or the institutional archive, e-Spacio UNED, which gathers together the results of all
research and teaching activity and is one of the top 100 in the world.
Furthermore, an effort has been made to bring together all resources in a Digital Content
Archive.
This archive contains all audiovisual files generated by the CEMAV, the UNED's Audiovisual
Media Center.
Another of the services that the UNED offers its students and graduates is the COIE, or
Work Orientation Center, which with its pool of in-company training offers aims to increase
students' employability or help reorient their professional careers.
A large number of sporting and cultural activities, among which we can find some of the oldest,
such as the Visual Arts competition and the Short Narrative Prize, make the UNED a reference
point in Spain's cultural landscape.
A University that is present in both the national and international media, thanks to its members'
academic contributions, and extremely active on the social networks.
With more than 235,000 followers and 19 million online views, it is the university to have
uploaded the most videos in the whole of Europe.
Its website, with access to all its resources, receives over 37 million visits a year.
All this can be added to the UNED's strong commitment to sustainability, transparency
and social responsibility.
The UNED is a long-distance university, that is very much up-to-date in its use of new
technologies applied to education, and this allows it to be a borderless university, the
university of the future, where knowledge moves faster than any other moving thing,
as can be read on the original shield.