UNIVERSIA-NET-PROJECT-WHO WE ARE

Who we are

Universia was created in July 2000 as an internet initiative in the higher education sector, promoted by a group of Spanish universities with the support of the Spanish University Rectors’ Board (CRUE), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and sponsored by the Santander Group.

At the beginning, 31 Spanish Universities committed to take part in the Project, and this led to other universities following the lead of these Spanish Institutions.

Universia was officially presented in Madrid (Spain) on 9th July 2000 as a Spanish initiative with a clear Spanish American vocation. On the same day almost all the Universia societies were also formally incorporated (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela). The Portugal branch was created a year later, followed by Uruguay in November 2005.

At that moment Universia took the first step towards becoming a reference point for the Spanish American Academic Collective on the Internet - rectors, academic positions, professors, researchers, trainees, students, post-graduates and administrative staff and services -.

The Universia network consists of 1069 Universities in 11 Spanish American Countries: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, España, México, Perú, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela. It has 12 internet portals, one for each country and another global site which offers information and contents from across the network.

The network represents 10.1 million students and 0.8 million university teaching staff (75% of the total number of students and staff in these countries).

Universia has also created the Universia Foundation, which aims to promote the employment of people with disabilities within the framework of the pluralist knowledge society.

Universia in figures

General Information

• The Universia Network is formed by 1069 Universities from 11 Spanish America countries , representing 10.1 million students and 0.8 million university teaching staff (75% of the total number of students and staff in these countries). Of the member universities, 626 belong to the public sector and 430 to the private sector.

• In the 11 countries where Universia operates, ( Argentina , Brazil , Chile , Colombia , Spain , Mexico , Peru , Portugal , Puerto Rico , Uruguay and Venezuela ) , there are 14.4 million students and university teaching staff (13.3 million students and 1.1 million staff), of which 10.9 million belong to Universia member universities.

• There are currently 108 rectors sitting on the Boards of the 10 societies and 10 sitting on the Universia International Advisory Council.

Site Visits

• Universia has seen a monthly average of 5.1 million individual users over the first half of 2007.

Objectives

The goal of Universia is to promote change and innovation in products and services linked to the Academic Community , helping Universities to develop shared projects and create new opportunities.

Opportunities for the exchange of experience and collaboration , through meetings with representatives from the academic, business and institutional sectors to promote the sharing of different experiences and partnership agreements.

Opportunities for university students to find employment and for businesses during the selection process.

Opportunities for technological innovation which contribute to the spread of knowledge and results of research.

At Universia we want to help universities to build the future. A future which under the name of Web 2.0 presents use with new challenges linked to interactivity, the creation of communities, the organisation of content, multimedia development and, overall, the increase of user involvement, the main asset.

The model of information portals is evolving into a decentralised structure where they are made up of contributions from users, in our case, from the universities themselves. Our objective is to develop projects which mark a tendency in this sense, and to strengthen our dimension as a global university cooperation network.

Furthermore, in this new environment, success is dictated by the number of users, and Universia, with an average of 5.1 million visits each month offers an excellent starting point for the development of trend-setting projects in this regard.

ABOUT UNIVERSIA (PDF) - International Advisory Board and Internal Structure

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