The General Council of the Vives Network of Universities, of which the UAB is member, has adopted the declaration "Mediterranean Universities within a Context of Climate Change: science, the fundamental pillar of actions against climate emergencies". This institutional positioning places scientific knowledge at the core of the social, economic, and environmental responses needed to face global warming.
The text is based on the scientific evidence collected by the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC), which warn that the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion is warming above the global average and faces significant risks regarding water resources, health and ecosystems. The declaration recalls that climate change is part of a broader alteration of the planet's life support systems and calls for a sustained, transversal and research-based response.
"Mediterranean universities must play a decisive role in the transmission of knowledge in this complex situation that forces us to act urgently," states the text approved by the rectors. Given the evidence that the year 2026 will present a warmer climate and be conditioned by extreme weather phenomena, the universities are committed to leading social transformation, strengthening research and knowledge on climate matters, integrating sustainability into academic training, deploying and reviewing action protocols, and advancing in the responsible and exemplary management of university campuses.
This position was adopted at the ordinary meeting of the general council, held at the University of Alacant on 6 March. It also coincided with the end of the institution's 30th anniversary, in which the Vives Network deployed a series of actions aimed at strengthening its own university system, which is innovative, egalitarian, rooted in the land and open to the world, and aligned with the values of quality, sustainability and inclusion that define the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).
