Now I will give you general data about the Open EU, about our Alliance.
In a few words, because we have to reduce
the time, it was born, as I said, in 2024.
It was approved on July 2, 2024, but as an Alliance
itself, it began to function on December 1, 2024.
It is, as I said, coordinated by the UOC, but we
are two Spanish universities, the UOC and the UNED,
which we are also leading, because the UNED
has a very important part of the project.
It is not as you are going to see, we are in the
Work Package 6, which is coordinated by Fernando,
which is the most important, because it contains
almost everything, so the UNED is making a great effort
to meet all the objectives and all the "deliverables", as it is called,
and we work with the UOC and with the other universities.
But I repeat that, in addition to the scope of the
UNED, because it is the largest campus in Europe
and the university that has the most students, etc.
, it has a very prominent role here.
Our vision for OpenU is to become the open
university, pan-European, which we are actually,
because we are the only Alliance that is open
universities, which takes advantage of digital education
for and with students, its learning
throughout life, a very important concept,
as well as with communities, because we also
want to be in society, not in the ivory tower,
with the objective of creating a better world.
That is what we always want in the university.
With education, I believe that a better world is
always achieved, and with such a large project,
I believe that also working hard and with
honesty and with love, we will achieve it.
The mission of OpenU is, of course, an
open university centered on the student,
so it is to establish an inclusive open
university, digital and ecological,
centered on the student and of European scope.
This is almost everything that the UNED is,
with the difference of the European scope,
which in a way we already had in the UNED,
because we have centers in Europe as well.
And what it has, it has the advantage of digital transformation,
contributing to digital transformation
in higher education institutions.
That is, integration of digital technologies,
reinforcement of the digital dimension
and revitalization of the European space of higher education.
We have been doing all this, but now with this larger funding
and with all this union of forces, I believe that this will be a tool
so that we can do much better with our mission and our function.
So, what do we have within OpenU?
There are three challenges of higher education in Europe,
which are permanent learning, inclusive and equitable higher education
and the digital transformation of higher
education in three thematic areas,
which are climate change, democracy, European
values and digital transformation in general.
The consortium not only groups the ten universities
that are members, but it has 14 universities.
For example, OpenUK, which is not in Europe because they left Europe,
cannot be a member and cannot have funding,
but it did want to be with us as an associated partner,
which can work with us, but of course
it does not have the same rights.
We have ten full members plus four associates,
nine of them are open universities and
there are five that are traditional,
but they want to be in the process of digital transformation.
We also have four university associations, one worldwide, two European,
one of which is EATU, which we have always
belonged to, plus one national in
France and eight non-academic members.
We have, because there is always this vision of working with society,
not only within the university, five industrial associations,
a digital network, a city association, plus one of local rural groups
of the European Union and an association
of mentors of the European Union.
The members of OpenU are, I have them here because,
remember, because I do not identify them by the logos,
we have the eight that are open and remote, members of EATU,
which are the University of Catalonia,
the UNED, the University of Portugal,
Bifrost University in Iceland, the Open University of Cyprus,
the University of Cyprus, the University of Germany,
the Hellenic Open University of Greece,
the Open University of the Netherlands, of the Netherlands,
and the two that are in attendance are the one in Latvia,
the one in Latvia, which is the Daugavpils University,
let's see if I pronounce it well, and the one in Bulgaria,
the Sensiril and Methodius University of
Veliko Tarnovo, it is the Veliko Tarnovo one.
Some of them are small universities, but
they are in the digitalization process,
as I said, and they are delighted to learn from everything that
the open universities, which we already
have experience, we can provide.
And well, we have a diverse, very large critical mass,
we were already the largest campus in Europe,
imagine now with the OpenU, there is a total of, well,
approximately 368,000 students, of which 60% are women and 40 men,
the average age of the students is 36, and 84% of them work and study.
There is a staff of 4,700, academic staff,
4,100 people in administration, 15,200 affiliated
academics or tutors, 709,000 graduates so far,
and well, in general, we already see
all the values that I have already said,
that it is open to all students and that we also offer
a wide variety of programs, that is, of degree, postgraduate,
doctorate, etc., as well as many languages, the study of languages,
multilingualism, which is fundamental in internationalization.
And of course, we are in agreement with the common values of Europeans
and that they are common values in OpenU, which are quality, equality,
diversity and integration, ethics and integrity, open science
and innovation, and environmental sustainability.
So I leave it here for Fernando to continue
giving more details of this alliance.