Campus Mare Nostrum 37 /38 es el Campus de Excelencia Internacional de la Universidad de Murcia y la Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena que, junto a centros de investigación, administraciones públicas, organizaciones internacionales, parques tecnológicos y empresas, persigue transformar la Región de Murcia en un foco de excelencia educativa, científica, productiva y cultural por y para el Mediterráneo.
Campus Mare Nostrum 37 /38 is the International Excellence Campus for Higher Education and Research of the University of Murcia (UM) and the University of Cartagena (UPCT). The campus is a joint effort of international organizations, research centres, technology parks, companies and the administration, which seeks to transform the Region of Murcia into a pole of international, high-quality education, science, business and culture in the Mediterranean area.
CMN was developed with the vision to become an international resource in the Mediterranean basin to serve as a catalyst for higher educational excellence and a promoter of sustainable product development, using its territory as a model of regional cohesion, and promoting modernisation and innovation in key productive sectors of the region that are characteristic of the Mediterranean.
Campus Mare Nostrum 37/38 pursues excellence through the modernization of the university system and its links with society. But excellence is a tool to achieve higher goals. We aspire to be relevant, not only in our immediate geographical area, but on the whole Mediterranean basin. The three hubs of excellence in CMN 37 / 38, namely, agri-food-based bioeconomics, quality of life and health-related technologies and the Mediterranean Sea and marine technology, far from being exclusive, are meant to play an integrative role.
The CMN has been conceived as a future international market with the participation of all the countries of the Mediterranean area, a region that shares similar cultural background and major concerns with respect to territorial development in a context of limited natural resources and drastic exposure to the effects of climate change.
The CMN establishes three areas of excellence in the fields of training, research, and technology transfer that have been carefully selected according to the strengths of the aggregated entities, the geographical context of the CMN and the need to provide solutions to the common challenges of the Mediterranean area.
The areas of excellence that define the differentiation strategy are:
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Bio-economics based on agri-food. CMN will act as an integrator between the different agents of the science and technology field, with the final aim of promoting the transformation and modernisation of the agro-alimentation sector in all of the Mediterranean basin, especially in Northern Africa.
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Technologies for healthcare and quality of life. CMN will foster a translational value chain in the biomedical area of excellence.
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The Mediterranean sea and naval & marine technology.CMN will promote knowledge sharing activities and their active use in the naval and sea fieldmain in order to foster regional development and knowledge export.
CMN 37/ 38 has the following strategic objectives:
- Teaching Excellence and Innovation
- New resources that encourage innovation and teaching quality for European Higher Education Area will be developed, taking advantage of the complementary resources of the participating universities. Additionally, education in an international context will be bolstered, and research will be promoted as a structural part of the educational system. A specific formation system will be established for Professional Development technicians and an International Postgraduate School and a Personnel Education Centre will be created in coordination with other international institutions, thus promoting continuous learning and student mobility.
- Innovation focused on the Mediterranean
- A singular offering with a strong focus on the Mediterranean basin will be deployed, as this is a global interest area for university research and specialisation. The Mediterranean Studies Centre will act as an opportunities observer in different scopes and coordinator of all the activities related to this dimension.
- Overall management of R&D
- All of the R&D value chain will be buttressed, reinforcing existent and creating new scientific technological institutions, boosting resources sharing, encouraging the valuation and joint commercialisation of the investigation results, establishing incubation and technology-based corporations, creating policies and promoting interdisciplinary and translational investigation as well as business coordination.
- 360 degrees CMN internationalisation
- Actions to promote CMN internationally in all dimensions will be launched, specifically in the Mediterranean area via a promotion plan created in coordination with partners' institutions and corporations. More actions will be launched internally among the campuses which may lead to the involvement of students, professors, technicians and international investigators in the global promotion plan.
- Adaptation of infrastructure
- A reference framework based on the European Higher Education Area and the European Research recommendations will be developed and used as the basis of the infrastructures convergence, sharing and adaptation. A concept of a Unified Campus will be developed using the model of a regional, polycentric, intermodal and distributive university with a broad housing offer.
- Developing a social campus
- All the required elements for the creation of a campus committed to compromise and social responsibility and environmental sustainability will be implemented. The objective is to offer a campus adapted to the diversity of all users, a campus that supports the integration and nurturing of a university lifestyle that fosters a participatory and habitability model, which promotes cultural and athletic activities for all citizens and new job creation in the CMN environment.
Internationalisation of the Campus
CMN proposes the direct scope for its international actuation include the countries of the Mediterranean basin. Therefore, one of its immediate objectives is to strengthen its presence in the EuroMediterranean University and Union for the Mediterranean, as well as in the new mobility programmes proposed by the Mediterranean Youth Office. New Master's and PhD programmes will be developed for this purpose, intensifying the Erasmus Mundus and Tempus programmes and expanding the international activities included in its current offering.
Priority objectives for the internationalisation of CMN would be the formulation of a promotional plan focused on the Mediterranean countries, the creation of agencies for foreigners' orientation, language training programmes including Arabic and French as important Mediterranean languages, the creation of a Mediterranean studies centre and the establishment of a CMN development and cooperation office.
Also, it is worth pointing out, the subscribed agreements with EMUNI, COTEC and the Spanish Innovation Foundation that will support the actions launched within this scope.
The following map shows the current CMN presence in the Mediterranean countries in terms of mobility programmes, research projects, and training & cooperation activities.
Teaching improvement and adaptation to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)
The main challenges of CMN in the teaching field within the EHEA are to increase the attractiveness of the training offering, ensure the quality of the training process in the context of adaptation to the new EHEA requirements and develop new training products or services.
In the context of internationalisation of the teaching offering, CMN will renovate its postgraduate training offering to include the areas of excellence within the CMN project. It will create an e-learning area to facilitate part-time and on-line education, develop a promotion plan for innovation in teaching quality, enhance student-attracting aimed policies with special focus on the Mediterranean area and promote the integration of Professional Development degrees in Higher Education.
Improving science and knowledge transfer
The main challenges in improving science and knowledge transfer are to encourage collaboration, strengthen the impact of scientific production in the international arena and enlarge the effective response to the technological needs of the technology companies located near CMN, with the main objective being the exportation and adaptation of the new solutions to potential clients of the entire Mediterranean basin.
To meet these challenges, CMN proposes creating three areas of focus in the CMN initiative with the support of the appropriate agents of industry, forming programmes promoting the involvement of talented international researchers and for facilitating international mobility, creating promotional plans for interdisciplinary research and the promotion of the CMN network of research institutes, creating a network of scientific-technological CMN facilities and strengthening those facilities oriented to the CMN focus areas, creating an evaluation and technology commercialisation unit (RRTO CMN) including its whole portfolio and its technology observatory, promoting an entrepreneurial culture and encouraging the development of knowledge-based companies.
Campus transformation towards a comprehensive social model and its interaction with the local environment
The main objectives related to interaction with the territorial environment and the development of an integral social model are related to an effective response to the housing demand, use of services, use of physical and virtual amenities, campus accessibility and transport availability, employability of orientation technology modernisation to adapt it to the needs of the territorial market and to the eco-efficient and sustainable use of infrastructure resources, assurance of adaptation of all services and facilities for all users, promotion of cooperation and social volunteerism and optimal and transparent management.
