University of Cádiz

During the 2007/2008 academic year, there were 17,280 students, 1,698 lecturers, and 680 administration and services workers associated with the university.

The University's origins lie in the 15th century with the "Colegio de Pilotos de los Mares de Levante y Poniente". Its Faculty of Medicine traces its founding to the Royal Naval College of Surgery in 1748, which was the first in Europe to combine medicine and surgery in a single school. The modern University of Cádiz was founded on October 30, 1979, with an inaugural session "Cajal, análisis literario de un carácter" about Ramón y Cajal and the first rector election was conducted in 1984. In March 1984, the Gold Medal was awarded to Juan Carlos I of Spain. In May 1985, Rafael Alberti and Antonio Domínguez Ortiz were invested Doctor Honoris Causa. In this year, the rectorate is relocated to the current building, Casa de los Cinco Gremios. University bylaws and statutes were approved in February 1986. In 1992, Centro Andaluz Superior de Estudios Marinos was inaugurated in Campus of Puerto Real. Since 2003, UCA has promoted new technologies for learning-related purposes, first with WebCT virtual campus and then Moodle (free software). In 2009, the recently created "General Inspection of Exceptional Services" begun to make decisions which were severely reprobed by some intellectual authors, for it allows authorities the use of official means in order to arbitrarily punish teaching staff.

In addition to the principal campus in Cádiz, the university has three satellite campuses: Bahía de Algeciras Campus Jerez de la Frontera Campus Campus of Puerto Real: near to Bahía de Cádiz Natural Park. The main building is the Centro Andaluz Superior de Estudios Marinos; CASEM which offers studies in Marine Environment and Marine Resources, Seafaring, Marine Engineering, Naval Radioelectronics and Naval Engineering.

Some schools within the university are: University School of Modern Languages ("[1]") University School of Health ("Salus Infirmorum") at Cádiz University School of Engineering at Puerto Real University School of Labor Relations at Jerez de la Frontera University School of Legal and Economic Studies ("Tomás y Valiente") at Algeciras University Center for Advanced Studies at Algeciras University School of Labor Relations at Algeciras University School of Pedagogy ("Virgen de Europa") at La Línea de la Concepción

University rectors in UCA history: October, 1979 – February, 1984: Felipe Garrido February, 1984 – June, 1986: Mariano Peñalver Simó September, 1986 – January, 1995: José Luis Romero Palanco. Reelected in November, 1990. January, 1995 – April, 2003: Guillermo Martínez Massanet. Reelected in February, 1999. May, 2003 – July, 2011: Diego Sales Márquez. Reelected in May, 2007. July, 2011 – 2019: Eduardo González Mazo. July, 2019 – present: Francisco Piniella Corbachoю

One of the first free software offices in Spain was founded at this university, Libre Software and Open Knowledge Office (OSLUCA). This office has set up some free software conferences (2004: I, 2005: II, 2006: III y 2009: IV), and the FLOSS International Conference. UCA provides a supercomputer for research purposes since 2007. It is a cluster of 80 computers, each with 4 processing cores (finally 320 cores) and 640 GB RAM, designed for a peak performance of 3.8 TFLOPS. The supercomputer uses SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 as operating system.

Some notable alumni from UCA: Francisco de Paula Medina Gutiérrez: physician and lecturer Pascual Hontañón Cabezas: physician Federico Rubio y Gali: surgeon Benito Alcina y Rancés: hygienist Antonio Machado y Núñez: rector of University of Sevilla and mayor of Sevilla Cayetano del Toro y Quartiellers: politician Gabriel Matute y Valls Guillermina Rojas y Orgis

The university participates in the ERASMUS programme, a partnership for student exchanges in Europe. It maintains relations with many universities on all continents.

Universities that have an exchange programme with the University of Cádiz include: Germany Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg University of Würzburg