Fedora Psyche Alicante 2010

The University of Alicante was born in 1979 from the embryo of a University Education Centre dependent on the University of Valencia, through a Spanish parliamentary law.

Alicante society, which played an important part in the stages leading up to its creation, welcomed the University whole-heartedly right from the very beginning, in terms of both its training objectives for students and also its contribution to scientific knowledge for R+D reports and projects for companies and institutions.

From the moment of its foundation, the UA grew rapidly and by the end of the 1990's the number of registered students exceeded 30,000. A determining factor in this growth was indeed the support the University received from Alicante's society, which had always longed for the creation and consolidation of its university studies. The campus had to undergo a series of expansions and ambitious projects for the construction of its centres, lecture halls and auxiliary buildings in order to respond to the continuous amplification of its degree programmes, which is ongoing as a result of the dramatic growth in the demand for places and research projects.

Despite its young age, the University of Alicante has inherited important university and educational traditions.

The oldest of these traditions is the University of Orihuela which was created in a papal bull in 1545 and whose doors remained open for two centuries. A few centuries on, the university tradition would be reborn in the shape of the young University of Alicante.

Some of the roots of today's centres are therefore firmly entrenched in age-old teaching institutions. For instance, teacher-training within the province of Alicante began in 1844 at the "Escuela Normal de Maestros" founded in Orihuela and now the present-day Faculty of Education.

The University of Alicante is located on one of the most attractive campuses in Spain. This is the general impression expressed by both visitors and experts alike, who value the environmental quality and the architecture of its modern buildings. In fact, the campus is an extra incentive to add to the list of the UA's features as an ideal venue for national and international academic encounters as well as for courses and student and teacher visits and exchanges.

Besides its great environmental value, the San Vicente campus, where the University is located, borders on the city centre of Alicante and there are good transport links between the two, including bus and tram services.