UNIVERSITY OF CANTABRIA
The University of Cantabria (UC) is a young modern public institution whose main purpose is to contribute to social progress through a firm commitment to scientific and teaching excellence. In order to achieve its goals, it strives to constantly improve the quality of its work through a process that revises and improves its teaching, research and administrative activities. The application of this process has made the University of Cantabria to be considered one of the top ten universities in Spain due to its quality and scientific productivity.
The University of Cantabria is the only institution that confers official degrees within the self-governed community of Cantabria. It offers a wide range of degree programmes and, since its creation in 1972, has provided a university education for more than 36,000 students. Its commitment to academic excellence is one of the main characteristics of a teaching offer guaranteed by the scientific prestige of the academic staff and monitored by the quality controls established by the institution itself.
In the last few years Cantabria has made the strategic decision to turns its Community into a “region of knowledge” to broaden its horizons of economics, social and cultural development, putting forward the design of an International Campus of Excellence. The Cantabria International Campus (CIC) means the maturity of a Project which aims to seek the excellence in education and the employability of its graduates, in research, in connection with society, in the transfer of knowledge to private and public sectors, and in establishing cooperation networks with universities, scientific centers and companies.
A University Project which is simultaneously a Community Project is presented; a project that is necessary for the sustainable development of Cantabria, pioneer because of its global commitment in the aggregation of management agents of knowledge, integrating public bodies as well as private ones, an innovator in processes and management through new organizational structures, which look for solutions and results through modernization, internationalization and excellence.
Cantabria International Campus has been undertaken by the University of Cantabria and the Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP) and is internationally unique, viable participative, strategic and competitive.
The Cantabria International Campus is a viable alternative because its Vision-Mission can be successfully reached thanks to its scale, which allows the interaction of its institutions, teaching and research quality of the University of Cantabria, the Menéndez Pelayo International University internationalization and a strong commitment of aggregate agents.
Cantabria International Campus also promotes University of Cantabria-Menéndez Pelayo International University partnership by adding 16 strategic agents. In the scientific and academic field, it has the strong commitment of the Superior Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the Spanish Oceanography Institute, the State Meteorology Agency, the Marcelino Botín, Comillas or Albeniz Foundations.
It has full support from the entrepreneurial fabric in Cantabria and the Santander Bank, which is its international prime example, together with Santander and Torrelavega Town Councils, which are the head offices of its campuses. The Project, which was ratified by the Parliament of Cantabria, has been taken on by the Government of Cantabria, and it has transformed it into the node of its new development model through SODERCAN, the Society for the Development of Cantabria.
CIC is the best project for the internationalization of Cantabria, a model for a Campus of competitive excellence in knowledge management in education, research and transfer processes.
The current situation of Cantabria leads to the selection of a series of areas which will each define strategic areas identified with the trademark “International Campus”.
Thus, Cantabria International Campus includes the following:
- International Campus of Water and Energy
- International Campus of Biomedicine and Biotechnology
- International Campus in Banking, Finance and Entrepreneurial Activity
- International Campus of National Heritage and Language
- International Campus of Physics and Mathematics
- International Campus of Technology
- International Campus of Technology and Port Administration
To reinforce the scope and transfer of acquired knowledge and to take advantage of strategic capabilities and internationalization in knowledge dissemination presented by Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP), an additional multi-disciplinary Campus is considered, and which joins up with those functional guidelines and guidelines by sector which are connected with international renown and communication, strategies of institutional aggregation and transfer support. This is called International Campus for Knowledge Dissemination.
LOCATION
Most of the campus is set in the low-lying area of Las Llamas in Santander, an open space that separates the northern side of the city from the rural areas along the coast. Las Llamas Campus also host part of the infrastructures of the Menédez-Pelayo International University in conjunction with The Royal Site of Magdalena.
The Campus is located in a privileged position within the city, just 5 minutes walk to the beaches, 5 minutes drive to the Royal Site of Magdalena, 15 minutes walk to downtown and 16 minutes from Santander Airport by taxi.