Well, so I'm going to talk mainly about the
initiative of the Alliances of European Universities
and then the Association of Spanish Universities
in European Alliances, to which we obviously
also belong, and then I will give a general
brushstroke of OpenIDU and my colleagues,
the Vice-Rectors-General, will continue.
The Alliances of European Universities, as you know,
are an emblematic initiative within the
European strategy for universities.
It is another way of integrating us in Europe,
because in reality, if you look at
what OpenIDU is like, it is very similar to the
philosophy of the UNED, but of course, now with a
much broader vision and with a much broader reach as well.
They are, therefore, ambitious transnational
initiatives of higher education institutions.
We have had four summits until 2024.
We got our funding in the last
summit, fortunately, it was on July 2, 2024.
I will never forget it because it was a great
joy for all of us. And well, its objective is to
develop institutional, structural and
strategic cooperation in the long term.
It is based, of course, on common values, which are mainly
European values and consensus principles,
with the aim of achieving the sustainability
of their cooperation. These universities,
these alliances, have two main objectives.
One of them, the first, is to promote excellence,
innovation and inclusion in higher education
throughout Europe, and also to accelerate the
transformation of higher education institutions
in the universities of the future, with an impact
of all kinds, structural, systemic and sustainable.
Sofía Erisson, who is the Director General of.
Education, Sport, Youth and Culture, was the
one who said at first that European universities
are not just projects, but, as I said, they are
transformation processes. In reality, this is not
a project that will last only four years.
We hope that after four years, we will continue
to be part of the Open EU, of this European
alliance of open universities, and that this will
transform for the better, of course.
So, they are transformation processes in the way of
seeing European education that tend to the
objectives of which I am going to talk about, inclusion, etc.
At the moment, there are 65
European universities alliances, that is, in
2025, that is what we have, which contain more than
570 higher education institutions in 35 countries,
including all the Member States of Europe, and
around 2,200 members. In addition, in 2024,
the Community of Practices for the 65 alliances,
which is called 4EU4ALL, is a platform that connects
European universities and the higher education
sector in general, fostering a closer
cooperation, whose main objectives are to
strengthen collaboration between these universities
and alliances and share the best practices.
On the other hand, the European community is working
with the European universities alliances and the
countries of the European Union, as an investment
for the universities alliances, that is, so that
from 2028, which would be when the project would be
completed, there will still be funding
for all the alliances, for the same
fact that I said before, because this is not just
a project, but it is a new conception, it is a
process in which we are and which must prosper,
and also, of course, facilitate a global
funding approach, seeking synergies
with national and regional financing.
Spain, as was already said in the video, is the third country
with the largest number of universities
members of European universities alliances.
We have a total of 54 Spanish universities, so I
think we have done our homework very well in
Spain in this regard. Well, there it says 55,
but there are 54, there are 54 Spanish universities
in 52 alliances, and this, for this reason, because
there are so many of us, the group of Spanish
universities in European universities was born,
with the aim of creating an environment of
cooperation that allows sharing knowledge,
experiences and good practices between universities
and other higher education institutions
. Here, the vice president general is Pastora
Martínez, who is the coordinator of the
general UNEU, and I am the vice rector
of the UNED in the board of directors, so
we also work there to share practice, to try
to improve everything that can be improved,
because of course there are many things that, as this is
a new project, there are many things that can be tuned.