Critical thinking, culture, sustainability and solidarity-based cooperation

UNIA’s governance model and its own activity are structured according to a series of
commitments and objectives of a clear social interest. These commitments are directly
related to the activation of some priority lines, such as critical thinking, sustainability
and cooperation. Hereto we must underline the confirmation and reputation acquired by
the project ‘UNIA-Arteypensamiento’, whose purpose is to incorporate into the
university institution the debates, artistic and intellectual production, dissemination and
consolidation of the works and reflections of contemporary society.

In an ongoing and structural manner the UNIA carries out an extensive and active
cultural action, with the main purpose of promoting the establishment of collaboration
networks both the Andalusian and the international cultural fabric by means of the
cooperation with its promoting agents. This extensive activity ranges from the
promotion of traditional culture manifestations to the most avant-garde expressions. To
this purpose the UNIA collaborates in the development of cultural proposals from
independent groups, organises training courses for culture management professionals
and is working in the establishment of a cultural observatory that will allow for the
creation of joint and coordinated policies in the field of culture. The UNIA devotes a
special attention to theatre in the widest sense of the term by means of the annual
editions of the “Theatre School” held in the Antonio Machado Campus in Baeza.
Another basic value to which the institution is firmly committed is that of “sustainability”,
which not only becomes a basic principle in the environmental management of the UNIA but also one of its preferred theme lines in the design of postgraduate programmes
or the organisation of specific Workshops. The main instrument in order to channel
and bring together the activities programmes and carried out by the UNIA in this field is
the “Sustainability Lecture Room”. It includes the “Wisdom for Change” Forum as an
attempt to set up an interdisciplinary reflection space, which by connecting the analysis
of environmental and human conflicts shall meet the challenges society is facing with
global warming.

Finally, the last important reference in the action of UNIA is Cooperation to
Development within the field that corresponds to Higher Education, and more specifically,
in the specific training provided by graduate studies. The university has got its
preferred field of action in the geo-historic areas with which Andalusia shares not only a
history that is common to a large extent, but also in those to which Andalusia feels
committed to collaborate in the task of building a common future too: Latin America,
the Maghreb, the Mediterranean Basin and Europe. In parallel to its general cooperation
programme the UNIA has recently reached an agreement with UNESCO in order to set
up the “UNESCO Chair on Interculturality and Human Rights”, which shall become an
effective instrument for the implementation of actions aimed at the fulfilment of the clear
commitment made by the UNIA in its Strategic Plan.