Confucius Institute of the Universitat de València is celebrating its 13th anniversary of teaching and development of Chinese culture at the Universitat. It is one of the most important and dynamic centres out of more than 500 Confucius Institutes distributed over the five continents.

The ceremony took place at the anteroom of the office of the principal and was held synchronously via streaming with the counterpart of the UV, the East China Normal University and the Chinese Embassy in Spain through the audiovisual workshop (TAU) of the Universitat.

It was attended by Vicent Andreu, director of the Universitat’s Confucius Institute; M. Vicenta Mestre, principal of the Universitat de València; Wu Haitao, Chinese ambassador in Spain; and Carles Padilla, vice principal for Internationalization and Cooperation; i.a.

Confucius Institute was established in València, 2007, under the direction of Vicente Andreu in collaboration with the National Office of Chinese Teaching as a Foreign Language (Hanban) and the Universitat de València, linked to the counterpart East China Normal University. In 2008 and 2009, it was chosen as one of the top twenty Confucius Institutes in the world and in 2010, as one of the top thirty due to the quality and initiative of its management team.

In 2013, its new headquarters in Tarongers Campus were inaugurated, which would complement the headquarters located in the Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication. This new building is fully equipped in order to accommodate new classrooms and the most comprehensive Chinese library (with teaching material) of the Valencian Community.

In 2015, this institute became the Model Confucius Institute at the 10th World Congress of Confucius Institutes held in Shanghai. And it was awarded three prizes in 2017: the prize ‘Portada del Mes’ of Levante-EMV, due to its cultural bridge between Valencia and China; the prize ‘9 de Octubre Mérito Cultural’; and the prize for being the best Confucius centre.