COMUNICATION

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation participated in the Annual Meeting of the Council of Rectors of the Association of Latin American Universities (AULA) which has approved, by unanimous agreement of its members, that the University of Extremadura together with the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation assume the presidency of the Association of Latin American Universities for the period 2022-23.  (17/03/2022)

In the online meeting, chaired by the rector of the University of Guadalajara of Mexico, the director of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, Juan Carlos Moreno, spoke and highlighted the role of Yuste Foundation in improving and promoting the space for relations between Europe and Ibero-America based on the promotion of education and culture.

Furthermore, among the issues that have been addressed in this meeting is the academic offer of the International Virtual School, where Yuste Foundation collaborates annually with 60 grants for three of the courses offered by the University of Extremadura. The International Virtual School of AULA-CAVILA (EVI) is the strategy of the association in order to promote teacher training with an international and innovative perspective in the disciplinary and pedagogical fields. The EVI promotes the exchange of scientific and educational experiences to advance towards the integration of an Ibero-American university space and the consolidation of learning communities.

The agenda of the meeting also included an item on the Aula-Cavila newsletter, which publishes information on trends in online education, research developments and academic activities related to education and their open, online and distance learning modalities; and another item on the challenges of the 21^st century university.

THE ASSOCIATION OF LATIN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

AULA is an association promoted by the Extremaduran Centre for Studies and Cooperation with Ibero-America, which merged with the Yuste Foundation in 2017, and by the University of Extremadura in 2007. To date, 20 public universities make it up. The Argentinian universities: the National University of La Plata, the National University of Córdoba, the Ntional University of Entre Ríos, the National University of Northwestern Buenos Aires, the National University of Quilmes, and the Northeast National University; the University of Porto and the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Portugal; the University of Extremadura (Spain); the Mexican universities of Guadalajara, the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Autonomous University of Chiapas; Santiago de Chile University; the Autonomous National University of Honduras, the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua; the University of Panama; Universidade Federal de Santa María (Brazil); the University of Asunción in Oaraguay; the Latin American Autonomous University of Medellín, and the Agrarian University of Havana. In addition, the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation is its honorary member.

The main initiative of AULA is the Latin American Virtual Campus, CAVILA, a campus for the promotion of teaching, research and Latin American identity through cultural extension (www.cavila.org).

CAVILA, which formally began its activities in 2008, has been transformed into a campus of enormous power by allowing not only a shared academic offer, but mutual support in the transfer of new information and communication technologies, the ability to share virtual libraries, form research networks or generate student mobility programmes among the public universities that comprise it.

In this virtual space, the different universities that integrate it offer higher education, degrees and courses, undergraduate and postgraduate subjects, and work in research networks. The Latin American Virtual Campus covers around 835,400 students and around 74,000 professors/researchers.