The University of Oviedo hosted today the solemn opening ceremony for this academic year, in which the number of first-year students increased and which means the complete deployment of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in all of its Undegraduate Degrees. Classes will start next Tuesday with 5,162 students in the first year, almost 500 more than last year. The academic institution hopes to maintain the overall enrolment around the 25,000 students, an amount similar to previous years'.

While still waiting for the registration period to close, for the time being, aroun 16,600 youths will go back to the classroom next week in studies adapted to the EHEA. During this academic year, the Bologna Plan will be deployed in all of the University's Undergraduate Degrees, with the exception of Civil Engineering, which started only three years ago. Nevertheless, the studies not adapted to the EHEA are still maintained, with 3,857 students enroled in them.

Apart from the Undergraduate Degrees and studies not adapted to the EHEA, the institution keeps open the registration periods for Postgraduate Studies (Master's Degrees, PhD Programs and Certificate Degrees and Continuing Education, which complete the total of students for the next academic year.

Moreover, the University still has vacant places in different Undergraduate Degrees, both in those with limited offer and in some with unlimited offer. Students have up until September 30 to apply for a place in them.

The official opening ceremony of this academic year took place this morning at the Main Hall, and featured the main academic and regional politic authorities, and, for the first time, the president of the Social Council, Ladislao Azcona. 110 doctors accompanied the authorities during the ceremony. During the act, the general secretary of the University, Ignacio González del Rey, performed the traditional reading of the minutes of the past academic year, while the inaugural speech was given by Alfonso Fernández Canteli, Tenured Professor of Continuum Mechanics and Theory of Structures.

The Rector of the University of Oviedo, Vicente Gotor, reminded everyone that this new academic year finalizes the adaptation process of the Degrees to the EHEA and pointed out that the first results of the evaluation of the Undegraduate Degrees are positive, since the rates of expectatives and performance are better in these studies than in the old Bachellor's Degrees, Diplomas and Engineering, alongside a lower rate of abandonment. Vicente Gotor mentioned the financial situation of the academic institution and explained that the "policies adopted must be sufficient to face the future in the short and long term". Furthermore, he consided vital the need to maintain policies such as the renovation of the academic staff and revised the main achievements of the academic institution since it was granted the seal of Campus of International Excellence.

In turn, the president of the Principality of Asturias, Javier Fernández, pointed out in his speech that "it is a collective aspiration that the University of Oviedo becomes one of the best in Spain and that it makes a name for itself in Europe. In this mission, the Government of Asturias will always be its ally."