All right.
So we're going to start with our, presentation about the open EU,
which is the strategic alliance of distance learning universities.
This is one
that belongs within the, you know, European Universities initiative.
And, the unit forms part of this open
European university is alliance where
most and I would say almost all the important
European open universities form part
then this alliance.
It's important because of course, it includes open science
and open libraries and everything that's open.
And the, you know, European Universities initiative includes
64 alliances with 5560 institutions from 35 countries,
including all the members of the European Union,
plus Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Montenegro, North Macedonia, Air Serbia
and Turkey.
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what?
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Broadcasting and I think they are launching and. Can
use on the menu think.
Okay but can I continue.
All right.
So, this is, you know, these are ambitious
transnational alliances of higher education institutions,
and they were for calls until 2024.
The aim is to develop long lasting,
long term structural and strategic institutional cooperation
based on common values, mainly European values and agreed
principles, with the aim of, of course, achieving sustainability
of their cooperation in.
I cannot move it now.
Do you think,
that.
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Yeah. Here. Here and here. Okay.
Oh, but now I don't have the presentation.
Screen.
Yeah, but someone is doing it.
Yeah.
Okay.
So here,
I was going to talk about, the, the main aims
or general objectives of these European universities.
The general here, you have the specific ones,
but the general ones are to improve the international competitiveness
of higher education institutions in Europe, to promote European values
and identity by fostering long term structural, strategic and sustainable
cooperation between higher education institutions.
Put in place a long term
joint strategy for education at the service of society,
with links to research and innovation where possible.
Also to build European inter university campuses
for students and staff members.
To study and work in different European countries,
different languages and across sectors and academic disciplines,
and also to set up European knowledge creating teams
with their innovation ecosystem
to help tackle current and future societal changes.
Here you have,
this doesn't work.
Yeah.
These are specific objectives which you're invited to read,
because of, I don't think it's necessary for me to rural this,
but the main, idea is given
by the general objectives that I have just,
talked about, then.
Well, in teams, I cannot move. Yeah.
Now, if this is, you know, what is important here
is that European universities are not considered to be projects,
but, transformative processes because it's not a project
that will end up just in four years time, like normal projects.
This is, a different,
I would say, approach, a different perspective to look at,
European universities.
And therefore we have to think of it as a process,
as a transformative process,
along which we are learning
and we are learning to work in a different way. I would say.
Then regarding Spain,
I think Spain has had a very important participation in the,
European Alliance's initiative, because in Spain
now has 54 of its universities within European alliances.
After adding ten this year after the fifth goal.
And so it is now the third country with the most universities in the
alliance initiative.
We have 54 universities and a conservatory in 52 alliances,
very close to Germany and France, with 66
and 63 institutions, respectively.
Here.
Well, this is, you know, just a picture of the
the rectors meeting in Barcelona for open you.
And I think it was January this year.
Our rector is here with the rest of the rectors
from the different universities that are members.
And, this is a project that is coordinated by the walk,
and we end the unity in Spain.
Well, but we are co, in fact, the work is the main one.
And then, the rest of universities, we are going to see
which universities they are
later on. But, all eight of them are open
universities and there are two others,
which are not open but are
on their digital, way.
Then there are open to you vision and mission is
the vision is to become the pan European Open University
that harnesses digital education for and with lifelong learners
and communities to make a better world.
So of course has to be
a sustainable green university, as we're going to see,
and based on, of course, the digital transformation,
then the added value of,
open you to other alliances is that this is a more robust,
inclusive and greener digital dimension of education,
research and innovation and capacity building.
Those are pillars of this, of this alliance,
the integration of emerging technologies, including,
artificial intelligence in higher education.
Also lifelong learners at university.
This is a flexible portfolio co-created with employers.
There is a broader diversity in the student body, nontraditional
students are all of course, welcome always in, open universities.
So we have nontraditional, lifelong learners and underrepresented groups.
And then, of course, we focus on higher education in rural
areas beyond cities and universities because we want to reach everyone.
And, of course, this has to do
with the democratization of internationalization,
thanks to virtual mobilities and joint programs.
We have in this, in this, project or,
you know, initiative, we have the three types of mobility.
We have,
physical, and then we have hybrid
mobility and also, you know, virtual mobility.
And then, the challenges,
of higher education in Europe, our military,
which are lifelong learning, as I said, inclusive and equitable
higher education and digital transformation of higher education,
which address three thematic topics which are climate change,
digital transformation, democracy and European
values.
Oh. The consortium of open you,
is composed of 14
universities, ten four universities, plus four associated partner
universities, then nine open and five traditional.
And then we have also four university associations.
One of them is global,
two are European, and then another one is national.
And then we have nonacademic partners as well, like five
industrial associations, one digital network, one cities
and one local rural groups associations.
And then we also have one association of mentorship.
The main the, the members of
the open EU, alliance are
these ten universities which are members in all their right.
Because we also have the Open University of the UK,
but since they are not Europe now, they can not be members,
full members.
So they are associated partners.
But the universities, that are members are at the Universidad
de Catalunya, our university owned Universidad de Alberto.
Portugal Bay, first University, now Iceland
Open University of Cyprus, that is university in Lithuania.
Lithuania is Latvia.
Yeah.
Foreign University in Hagen, Germany, Hellenic Open University in Greece
and the Open University of Netherlands.
And also Sincerely and Saint Methodius University of Noble
in Bulgaria.
Then associated partners are the E d2
European Association of Distance Teaching University,
the IAU, the International Association of Universities,
as I said, the Open University of UK finance, Knowledge University,
Unico and Albania, the Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogy Academy,
UAB, MIT
University in Macedonia, Federation Inter University resilience.
No. The cinema no distance in France,
mediator Romanian Universities Union, European and Tech Alliance.
Student in Germany.
Digital nation coalition universities.
Well, there are all of these maybe being, you know, a bit,
it's a bit boring to name them all, but I just wanted you to know
that this is a very big alliance and that we
not only have the full members, but we have many associates and,
and important associations that are working together with us.
Then as regards numbers, we,
have us, the,
you can see and decide the diverse critical mass.
We have 307,
68,000 students, of which,
62% are women, 38% are men.
Then the average age is 36.
84% of them work and study.
So they are not the traditional student
as is normal for open universities.
Then we have more than 695,000 graduates,
and students are normally over 25 years old of all genders
and from more than 100 countries outside the EU.
Then we have also 4900 academic staff,
4100 administrative staff,
1500 and 15,200 affiliated
academic and tutors, and a total staff, there of more than
24,160 people.
So, we
have then, as I said, eight open universities,
two traditional universities in the digitalization process.
And we have all kinds of programs bachelor's degrees, master's degrees,
PhD, lifelong learning, open courses, micro degrees, Micro-Credentials
courses for the preparation of exams, vocational training
and many languages involved in this alliance German, Bulgarian, Catalan,
Spanish, French, Greek, Dutch, English, Icelandic, Lithuanian,
Portuguese and Russian.
So as you see, this is a very, very diverse
and and I would say important, relevant
alliance, which was necessary because there was no previous
alliance in the European Union, of Open University.
All of the previous alliances work on both,
you know, normal,
let's say, traditional universities.
So now it's, Fernando's turn to continue with a presentation.
So let me finish.
I can be.
You much?
Thank you.
And good morning.
And, of course,
establishing,
the open EU university requires,
creating a structure,
management bodies,
a structure of governance, and.
Well, that is, not an easy task
when ten different universities from different cultures are involved.
However, in the,
slide, on this slide, you have
we have chosen to,
show some management structures, not the whole government
structure, which is something yet to be established.
They will certainly be an open EU secretariat,
which will have to work, yeah, to mix
a centralized way of working with, networking
with a decentralized and horizontal way of working
and then several offices with a specific task in quality
and management, internationalization, mainly mobility,
and also communication and engagement.
The good thing is that even though these rules
within 18,
ten different universities with different
academic cultures and even national cultures, we,
have so far managed to agree on, common organizational culture
based on the values they reflected equality,
ethics and integrity, equality, diversity, inclusiveness.
These are the core values of the project. And,
the structure, the, the modes of government
will have to flow from these values.
Open science and innovation, sustainability and so on.
So far,
one of the achievements of the process
is to agree on this common organizational,
culture.
Now, here
we see, some of the
of what open EU has to offer.
One big, chapter of the over will be international
mobility programs with different forms of mobility that,
cater to different target audiences, to different profiles of students.
I will not dwell on this because Professor
Sanchez will be the will explain this in more detail.
But also it's interesting to see the variety of the academic offer
first, as has been a as and the vice rector,
Alvarez has already pointed out as, one of the core,
parts of
the offer is a joint bachelor in software development.
The creation of the of the of this joint venture.
It is already ongoing.
Not all ten universities take place.
Mainly, it's,
not mainly it's only three universities network
and they open University of the Netherlands. But,
in this sort of project, this this is,
I mean, flexibility is one of the key,
features of this system because it this means that if three universities
or five universities want to develop one of these,
courses or possibilities, they can,
they are the then the courses, the participation
in the promises open in the future to the other universities.
But you don't need to put all ten universities in agreement.
Three, 4 or 5 can,
run a project, can establish, a common program,
and then the others may or may not or develop other programs.
Right.
Then,
of course, big, high on the agenda is the development
of a joined micro degree program on European values in democracy.
This is one of the three challenges or an open
master program on climate emergency and sustainability.
Again, another important,
part of the over
is that the universities involved will pool
their micro credit credentials over and have a joint portfolio.
And then other parts of the offer are there.
Reflected on this slide.
I don't have to to read all of them.
Just,
point to you to,
so far, how we conceive access
digital access to the open
EU offer through a common portal,
and then a joint participatory
platform, a joint learning platform,
normally with a state of the art,
technology.
Sorry, we need to move on.
This, of
course, is a four year project.
Open year is not yet established.
It will be established at the end of the four year term,
fully established.
I mean, and, in order to create the open EU, for,
I mean, eight areas of activity work in packages,
have been, designed,
here in this
on this slide, you see how the work
and the different work packages relate to to one another.
But mainly this comes down to this,
these work packages on top.
Are meant to tackle the three challenges
of lifelong learning
inclusive education
and research and capacity building in the Aim,
digital education and the other work packages
are meant to make the Alliance work so that the
the challenges are tackled properly and to,
the fullest possible extent.
I, I cannot
I don't have time to go through all the work in packages.
I will only, outline the importance of work package, one
that will establish the government and management structures
and also a work package six, which is,
I would say,
one of the core parts of, of the project
because it will offer the joint programs mobility.
And also this is led by Unit and Co Ltd.
We showed leadership with the Open University
of Cyprus.
Here,
here on the, on these others like we you see.
Well the some of the individuals and some of the
organs and institutions that have been have been involved,
the team, well, has benefited from the vision
of Rector Maidan, who had very clear that,
it had to be in one of these alliances because is, is
is the sign of the times and when it had to be part
of these movement, the leadership of lowed by the rector alma from
the vice
rector, setting priorities and giving
day to day the drive to to our activities, my own work
and also the the talent, the dedication and the leadership
as well of everything associated with the
hos, the chair,
the unicycle chair in distance education.
Then other bodies of women have made significant contributions,
such as the E with the the Engineering School of Informatics
leading the way towards that.
Joined bachelor degree.
Faculty of education leads another led by this work.
Some of you know so well
As I said,
unit elites world package world package six
focused on inclusion and internal centralization,
mobility and joint programs, that is that is why I consider
to be one of the core working packages.
These,
Work packages.
This work package is meant to build the foundation
for these joint programs and to build a system of mobility
that offers, as we said, four different types of mobilities,
all in a seamless digital,
multi and multilingual campus environment.
And all these
which is meant to contribute to the democratization,
internal internationalization and inclusiveness of higher
education across Europe.
So far,
this is the first alliance
that I mean, we've talked about, what, 65 alliances.
Right.
Well, there was not an alliance
formed mainly by distance learning universities.
And distance learning plays a crucial role nowadays
in inclusiveness, democratization, lifelong learning and so on.
So these really fields, a whole that was,
that existed in, in the whole process of European
university alliances,
and I don't want to.
Yeah.
Of course, the work package
is one of the more complex packages.
It involves several,
challenges, regulatory in terms of quality assurance.
I want to,
focus on the academic challenges ahead,
which involve
developing, teaching and assessing common assessment methods.
But this, of course, will enrich will enrich, we believe the students
experience and also academic staff experience and,
without
without further,
ado, I will just,
remind you of some of the key elements of the academy.
Go for the joint machine learning software development.
As I said, this is an initial joint venture.
The word initiative is key here of hundred and 80, credits.
That is now being developed by at the Open University
of the Netherlands and work.
It it's open to other partners,
but it's, this doesn't mean
that all have to, to be part of this, but some are open to join
into this program and also,
sorry.
It's here.
Another part of the initial academic offer
is this joint bachelor in recent years or
it's a bit difficult to
insert. Yes,
pilot experience on a joined micro degree on European values
and democracy, mainly to,
consolidate and expand the, the of the,
how the
democracy and European integration go together, which means democracy
member states, democracy at the European Union level
and democracy and democratic values is
one of the core values of the European promises.
I we now give the floor to
and for the of the reader and also the mouse.
And thank you.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
So we're going to.
To develop
diversity of mobilities of students and staff.
Mobilities.
To, reach this, on to cob.
With this challenge of inclusive mobility.
And in this sense, open EU is one of the,
I would say, best alliances, international alliances, say
in Europe for promoting
mobility, international mobility in the sense of inclusion
because in onsite mobilities, well, many students
and nontraditional students are not going to be able to go and,
take advantage of, international mobility.
But in open education, in distance and digital education,
we can promote virtual mobilities and blended mobilities
and synchronous mobilities with international experience.
And this is the program we are going to develop
in this seamless mobility framework.
We are going to develop an open EU mobility toolkit
that would be,
based on the Ed to you, the European Association
of Decent Teaching Universities framework of
four different types of mobilities were, open to US students.
The first one is embedded mobility.
That means that, academics in any of open EU universities
can offer some international task within their subjects.
So the students in open, you can just,
have this opportunity to be able to have a mobility,
a bit of mobility with other students in other courses.
Exchange mobility for individual students is a normal their regular
for instance, Erasmus+ staff mobility we do have
but we are working for instance, a unit in virtual mobility.
So they can also have this kind of Erasmus is double grade recognitions.
But between mobility windows in network at program,
is very much linked to those programs we are going to deliver
and what to design and to deliver which different types of courses
in a network that will be offered to students
so they can go in a flexible way, in a flexible pathway, choosing
one courses or another.
And in this kind of mobility, well, we are going to coordinate between,
like in the, out in the open master, we are going to offer
this kind of mobility.
And finally, as Fernando has mentioned,
we are going to develop the joint programs.
These are official programs.
And they will have, of course, the official mobilities.
So you can see that that would be a significant leap
on mobilities, as the European Commission wants to,
although thing very, relevant
in terms of internationalization, multilingualism.
We are an international, alliance with 12 differential languages
of course, we all know that English is like the, language more or less.
We used in, in, international European projects.
But, the European Commission wants, two things, on the one hand,
to promote the learning of a second and third language.
And in this sense, we have in our universities
several, language centers, as you said, unit for,
learning languages.
So we are going to promote and to offer courses,
for the learning of a second and third language.
But also the European Commission wants us to prevent or to to preserve
the richness of our languages, our on our own languages.
We have 12 different languages.
In this sense,
we are going to take advantage of artificial intelligence,
and we are going to work on two directions.
On the one hand, well, you need.
Well, we'll.
Coordinate,
pimple multilingual in the space for the administrative staff.
And the academic staff for internal communication.
People is like in I supported translator, in writing, text.
But also, the work is going to take advantage of, neural machine
translation for the starting to work on virtual classrooms,
multilingual virtual classrooms in which the students can,
talk their own language and, and being translated it,
we have to to think that we are just in the beginning of,
a huge, explosion of multilingualism, thanks to AI.
So these are the two first things we are going to work on, but
I guess that we will have many, many other, possibilities.
So coming now,
because we cannot explain the whole project is a huge project.
But coming now to the topic of this conference, open EU libraries.
Well, something very relevant is, open education
and open science in open EU, for the European Commission, but,
libraries, that's the thing you are going to discuss
all these days are very relevant in this issue
and very relevant to libraries for our,
alliance.
So I just had to explain the these, educational principles
that we do have in open EU that you already know, regarding,
what the,
Unesco has done
in, in promoting open educational resources
since 2002 than in the, Universal Declaration in 2012.
And this the recommendations of 2019 and that we have been all involved
and of course, all our open,
and distance education universities have been working on,
50 years of experience in opening in allegation.
But in this sense, we will promote,
of course, open educational resources very, very precisely.
For instance, in the states, in a staff
training in digital skills development or inclusive
gender equality, they will be open educational resources for the staff.
We do have the open EU rural Egypt agenda.
We want to open also,
education in remote places, in rural places
to contribute to regional development and open educational resources
will be a part of the the things we are going to develop.
And also we want to open educational resources,
for synergies with other universities and alliances.
We have to exchange open educational resources,
when we can, to the the point of open science.
The first option in open EU is this implementation of the open
EU, open science and innovation plan that will be based on
a lot of in opening science.
So, the principles are,
precisely what the European Commission
says in, in, in 2019, regarding open science
and the Unesco recommendations in 2021, these are our current basis
for the development of our open EU framework in open science.
But, specifically,
and coming to the point how libraries can contribute to
there are some actions that are very relevant,
in the
implementation of open, you open science plans first, the open access.
So open EU
research and innovation publications will be open access by default.
All the documents related to a European
research area that will be developed will be open.
And for the rest, we are going to use the Unesco recommendations as open
as possible, as closed as necessary, depending on security reasons.
I mean, all these things that has,
to do, with, being open and closed.
Secondly, for data that you already know,
findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable,
open EU has to develop its own data management plan in the
in this sense, to be fair.
And, also, we will be integrated
as soon as possible in the European Open Science Cloud.
Then open infrastructures, we will use
and develop open infrastructures.
We want, citizens to be involved
and citizen science engagement with open, sessions,
courses, conferences and so on.
And being in, in contact permanently with the stakeholders
and the society.
And finally responsible research assessment.
We will adhere to coalition
for advancing the research assessment that you already know.
Core.
So to to to come to the end of this presentation of the open, you,
as we have said, this is a transformative process.
I mean, we are not going to finish hopefully in four years.
This is something to be sustainable in the time,
open EU partners will be involved in all the tasks.
I mean is not
although they are different word packages
as in any other European project in which they are coordinators
and so on.
But this is a transformative process for all.
Every institution in open, EU.
So we aim in the in the end that building this sustainable, open
European university, the only one that will be, with the
the social values that open education has in the whole world.
So we are the only one open and based on digital
and distance education at this moment,
because this is the the way we can be open
and to build this vibrant to have been EU community.
So thank you very much.
You are welcome to open you because we are going
if you are part of the alliance, there are libraries here
that are part of the Alliance.
We will be working together.
If you are not, we want to work with other, alliances.
And here you can have a look to the webpage of Open Us.
It's, just a no, thank you very much.