On Friday 14 July ended the 40th edition of the Summer University of Gandia which, under the theme “40 years of social university efficiency”, took place in the city with a complete programme, in which 12 courses and several open activities are included.

 Joan del Alcàzar, academic director of the International Centre of Gandia, has taken stock of the edition. With regard to the academic offer, del Alcàzar considers that "we can be more than satisfied. More than three hundred people attended, which gives an idea of the quality of the topics covered and the quality of the speakers in charge of developing them". In addition, for the first time the UEG certified attendance with microcredentials, "an innovation that may not have received the attention it deserves," he acknowledges, "but which has put Gandia at the forefront of the latest academic developments". As far as the profile of those attending the courses is concerned, it has been wide and varied; in addition to conventional students, it is worth highlighting the students of the Nau Gran of the Gandia Centre, as well as a large group from the CEFIRE of Gandia. The most succesful courses were those on Artificial Intelligence, Postmemory or Astrobiology. Furthermore, Joan del Alcàzar believes it is necessary to highlight the course on regional funding "which brought together in Gandia eminent specialists in a problem that is not so much technical as political. A course that concluded with the proposal to establish Gandia as a kind of permanent seminar on this issue".

As for the open activities, both the afternoon debates and lectures and the evening activities have been a great success with critics and the public, so "we congratulate ourselves on the programme and we are grateful to the public for practically filling the Salón de Actas and the Jardín itself every day", says the academic director of the CIG-UV.

Once the 40th edition of the UEG has finished, Joan del Alcàzar considers that the final balance must include "an unpostponable need to rethink the current model: the changes that have taken place in society and in the university are so many and so profound; the modifications that have been introduced in student behaviour, the difficult compatibilities with the new academic calendar, the appearance of new training needs and new channels to acquire them, the influence of youth social networks, the increase in cultural alternatives including recreational ones, etc., that our model has to be analysed and reformed in line with all these new developments”.

In addition, the Universitat de València considers it vital to increase the number of people involved in the new stage that it wants to open with a view to the UEG 2024: "the town councils of La Safor, the professional groups, the CEFIRES, the most dynamic companies, other educational levels not necessarily university have to form part of the new project that we will start to define when we return from the summer", concludes del Alcàzar.