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Cooperation is one of the main commitments of universities to society. Furthermore, collaboration between universities represents a fundamental tool for improving the quality of all aspects of citizens' education. This type of cooperation is generally accounted for in the policies and educational programmes of higher education institutions.

Inter-university agreements also provide opportunities for schools, faculties, departments and the university community as a whole to promote development and solidarity towards other nations.

As the CRUE's University Committee for International Relations (CEURI) states, "relations with other universities are a fundamental aspect of a university's activities, creating the conditions for the dissemination and analysis of knowledge, the exchange of members of the university community, and cooperation and solidarity initiatives". Collaboration initiatives between higher education institutions are carried out within this context.

Inter-university Agreements

Spain generally holds inter-university agreements with Latin-American countries, although the number of agreements with countries of the Mediterranean basin, the Arab world, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia is growing. Bilateral inter-university agreements, outside the European framework, that establish the academic recognition of exchange programmes, are also more common. The CRUE has fostered framework agreements for academic recognition with various Latin-American universities. The OEI's PIMA programme facilitates academically recognised student mobility in Latin America from a multilateral perspective.

The programmes of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, for example, focus on improving academic communication between institutions in Spain and Latin America on issues surrounding teaching methods and research. To this end, short-term scholarships are given to postgraduate and doctoral students, lecturers and university managers. The Agency's Thematic Teaching Networks provide in-depth information on different university systems, thus favouring sustained collaboration and the establishment of joint programmes.

In Europe, the EU's ALFA and Alban programmes also target Latin America. ALFA's objectives are the development of common projects and the creation of systematic and sustainable cooperation mechanisms to aid student mobility systems, whilst the Alban programme addresses Latin-American students who wish to follow postgraduate or doctoral programmes in Europe.

The creation of the Erasmus World Programme will facilitate the collaboration of the European university system with other countries by introducing joint European postgraduate programmes of excellence, by linking these programmes to universities in other countries and by granting scholarships to its students.

The EU fosters similar initiatives with countries of the former Soviet Union and the Balkans (TEMPUS and with the United States and Canada. There are also the ERASMUS programmes (1989-1994), and SOCRATES/ERASMUS (1995-2006), which facilitate the mobility of students and lecturers between the EU's member states and the introduction of joint programmes and initiatives.

There are also European initiatives for inter-university cooperation that are not directly linked to the EU. The European Association for International Education (EAIE), for example, www.eaie.org aids the internationalisation of higher education. Specifically, it promotes the cooperation initiatives put forward by educators.

An interesting example of educational internationalisation is the European Class, backed by the Environmental Science and Environmental Education Network, a network of 15 universities in 14 European countries. The mixture of lecturers and students from different countries in an academic year at one of these 15 universities fosters strong European sentiment among those involved. The European Class is currently being held at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).
There are also international bodies that aid cooperation between universities. The Association of African Universities (AAU), promotes initiatives between African institutions and institutions in other parts of the world.

Similar initiatives are carried out by the Association of Universities of Asia and the Pacific and the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education.

Cooperation agreements are also established on cultural grounds, as in the case of the Francophone University Agency (AUF), whose members are universities in French-speaking countries. One of the AUF's programmes promotes the use of new technologies in higher education at its member institutions. The Association of Portuguese-Language Universities (AULP) is similar to the AUP.
The UNITWIN programme, under the auspices of the UNESCO, promotes inter-university cooperation, with a particular emphasis on the transfer of knowledge between universities and the promotion of academic solidarity between the world's different countries.

Cooperation to Aid Development

The CRUE understands universities' cooperation to aid development to be "the cooperation of universities in processes of socioeconomic development" in other countries (see the CRUE document "Strategies in University Cooperation to Aid Development", September 2000, ). Additionally, solidarity initiatives are carried out by universities in countries suffering economic instability or at war.

In terms of the aforementioned statement, it may be said that all Spanish universities provide a centre for cooperation to aid development. Universities also provide an environment in which organisations created by faculties or students can cooperate in carrying out solidarity initiatives.

One of many examples is the Centre for Cooperation to Aid Development, at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). One of this centre's initiatives, proposed by the Centre for Social Affairs at the Universitat Autònoma de Bellaterra, sent university volunteers to the University of Tuzla, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to help implement a programme for university access for people with special needs. This initiative was carried out after the Bosnian War.

Humanitarian cooperation and solidarity initiatives are, as previously stated, carried out by all universities in Spain (see links at the Internet Solidarity Network's University-Solidarity channel), Europe and the rest of the world. These initiatives are continuously underway in those countries that most need them, and in countries that have suffered the consequences of war, as is the present case of Iraq. With reference to this conflict, the CRUE has supported all the initiatives in favour of peace at universities, and has committed to promoting university campuses as "spaces in which individuals and organisations that are divided and in conflict can meet and communicate, making our institutions into infrastructures that create opportunities for the achievement of peace" (see the document "In Favour of Peace" at http://www.crue.org).

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