COURSE 2025/26
An openness to talent, science and engagement
At 12:05 p.m., with the dry blow of the baton on the floor of the Magna classroom , the 2025-26 academic year officially began. Jesus Ayala has been once again -and this is the tenth time- the one who with this solemn gesture has marked the time of an act in which the president, María Iraburuadvanced some of the lines that will define the University's strategy for the next five years. A strategy that will combine "continuity and innovation".
The opening at the University is a milestone. True to a tradition that has its roots in the medieval history of the first academic institutions, it is the act that opens wide the academic year. A door through which more than 14,000 students and more than 7,000 professionals will pass in the coming months. In a year marked by the launch of the 25-30 Strategy, the president, María Iraburu, has defined the three axes of the plan, which will have the degree scroll "A university for all: talent, science, commitment".
Regarding the first of these axes, the president pointed out that one of the University's goal is to offer students, professors and researchers "an environment that helps them to develop their full potential". Referring to science and knowledge, María Iraburu highlighted the commitment to research, as a commitment to the future, "something that belongs to institutions and people with vision". "We live in a complex world and we know that there are no single or simple answers to problems. research allows us to enter into this complexity with confidence, without partisan agendas or preconceived ideas; to make contributions from the rigor of science and with the expanded vision of multidisciplinarity, so typical of the university," she stressed.
Focused on several lines of research, the new strategy highlights the University's commitment in areas in which it intends to be a reference and have a particular social impact: the irruption of AI in professional environments, the ethics of the professions, the Education of science and environmental Education , and the communication of research.
"We want the results of our research to reach the public and contribute to a less polarized and more reflective society."
MARIA IRABURU
president of the University
"A good citizen knows and feels that he or she is part of society as a whole."
NAVAL CONCEPTION
Professor at the School of Education and Psychology
Education CIVICA, core topic FACING THE CHALLENGE OF POLARIZATION
The president s speech brought the ceremony to a close, marking the official opening of the academic year. Previously, the University Secretary, Jesús María Ezponda, read a summary of the academicreport for the 24-25 academic year, followed by Concepción Naval, professor at the School of Education and Psychology, who gave the inaugural lecture entitled "Character and Citizenship: 10 thesis on Civic Education ".
Professor of Theory and History of Education and leader of the research group "Education, Citizenship and Character", Professor Naval explained that "civic Education is not a new concept, but a classic one, with deep roots in the history of Western philosophical, political and pedagogical thought", but that in recent decades it has gained new momentum. In her speech, she tried to explain the concept, which is clearly related to moralEducation . The professor also advocated reviewing " digital or media citizenship", since virtual media have become "central elements for public participation, they are a relevant modulator of social movements and constitute a core topic channel of social and cultural influence and communication of political ideas".
speech of the president
Inaugural lecture
COURSE report
/ Since 1952
Dressed in academic robes, today more than two hundred PhDs lined the 60 meters that separate the Salón de Degrees from the Magna classroom . This is where the academic ceremony has taken place since 1964, the year in which the Central Building, the cornerstone of the current campus, was completed.
Before that date, the academic ceremony for the opening of the academic year flowed with the same solemnity through the streets and buildings of the city. The first, held on October 17, 1952, signified the official inauguration of the Estudio General de Navarra: one School (the School of Law), a little more than forty students, and six professors. A modest seed that was born, nevertheless, with a full university vocation; something that the protocol of the act showed. The Foral committee room of the Provincial Council was the setting for a ceremony in which gowns, coats and caps were rooted in a tradition as old as the universities of Salamanca, Alcalá or Santiago de Compostela.
Before the academic ceremony, the Mass of the Holy Spirit was celebrated in the chapel of the Virgen del Camino, in the Church of San Saturnino. This Eucharist was also in keeping with the old Spanish university tradition.
THE "LEARNED" ENCLOSURE
The Cámara de Comptos, first, and the Museo de Navarra, later, hosted the opening ceremonies of the academic year in the following years. The academic procession, with their more and more colorful caps and gowns, went through the streets of Pamplona on their way from the parish of San Saturnino, from the Cathedral or from the church annexed to the Museum which, since 1958, was used as the University Chapel. Santo Domingo, Mercaderes, Curia... The curious crowded the passage of such a solemn parade that, in spite of its serious academic air, oozed with festivity. A good part of the streets that the procession passed through, or close to them, is the route that the young men and bulls take every morning during the San Fermín festivities. For this reason, some people have humorously baptized the academic parade as the "learned" running of the bulls.
/ Tradition and symbols
Today little has changed in the protocol of the event, full of details that do not go unnoticed. Or they do. The order of the parade, the meaning of the colors, the objects used... Jesús Ayala, the current master of ceremonies, knows them well. He has been acting as master of ceremonies for ten years, taking over from the seven masters of ceremonies who have preceded him since 1956, when Ángel Faus took over the task of guiding the academic events.