Next March, the University of Oviedo will join the Conference of Rectors of Universities of South West Europe (Crusoe), which groups university and research centers included in the group known as Regions of South West Europe (Resoe). The Rectors of the University of Oviedo, Vicente Gotor, and the University of Vigo, Salustiano Mato, who also holds the vice-presidency of the Crusoe, had a meeting with the councillor of the Presidency, Guillermo Martínez, and the councilor of Education, Culture and Sports, Ana González, to discuss about joint actions to be developed once the Asturian academic institution enters the group.

 

As a first initiative, The Principality has suggested holding a Summit of all the universities, higher education institutions and research centers of the five territories that make up Resoe, in order to set up a technological and academic collaboration project in the Iberian Northwest. The promotion of university and research collaboration is one of the priorities set up by the 5 areas that make up this macro-region: Asturias, Castilla y León, Galicia and the areas of north and center of Portugal. 

 

The Resoe is an area of the European Union which, in spite of its peculiarities, shares the same challenges. It is established as an economic-legal alliance, which entails a stronger administrative and demographic nature , useful when establishing an area for economic expansion, encouraging academic and business collaboration and promoting institutional collaboration to save costs and improve services to citizens.  

 

The Resoe groups five regions (Galicia, Castilla y León, North of Portugal, Asturias and Center of Portugal) with a surface of 183.887 square kilometers with 12.3370.180 inhabitants. It offers a total of 27 public universities, 62 higher education institutions and 80 research centers, which make it a key place to establish an area devoted to university excellence, linked to the European Higher Education Area, as well as to develop collaboration projects based on technology and on knowledge transfer to companies, to bring products and services to market. 

 

Most of these academic centers are included in the Crusoe, which the University of Oviedo will join next March. Then, the necessary arrangements will be made to hold this summit, aimed at promoting an area for the university excellence and also to lay the foundations of this university strategy, and fix the objectives of the collaboration.