Founded in 1499 by Cardinal Cisneros, it is one of the oldest universities in Spain and boasts among its former alumni some of the major figures of Spanish history and culture: its lectures have been attended by Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, Tirso de Molina, Fray Luis de León, Ignacio de Loyola, Juan de Mariana, Arias Montano, Ginés de Sepúlveda and Gaspar de Jovellanos, to name just a few. The city of Alcalá de Henares is well known as the birthplace of Cervantes, creator of the unforgettable Don Quixote.
Only thirty kilometers from the centre of Madrid, today the University of Alcalá is a modern institution which offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs adapted to the European Higher Education Area and covering all fields of knowledge, from the humanities to engineering, and from the social sciences to experimental and biomedical sciences. Around 27,000 students—approximately 19,000 undergraduates and 8,000 postgraduates—are currently reading for a regulated degree at the University of Alcalá.
The activities of the University of Alcalá take place across its three different campuses: the humanities, architecture, the social sciences, law and economics are taught in the university’s sixteenth and seventeenth-century premises in the historic heart of Alcalá; the faculties of environmental sciences, biology, pharmacy, medicine and chemistry, the schools of nursing and physiotherapy, of computing science, and the advanced polytechnic school are all located just outside Alcalá on the external campus; and the schools of teacher training, business science, nursing, building engineering and tourism are all to be found on the Guadalajara campus. Among the university’s strong points are its teaching of the Spanish language and its research in the fields of biomedicine and bioengineering. It boasts four associated teaching hospitals, three multidisciplinary university institutes, two science and technology parks and numerous other installations devoted to experimental and biomedical research.
As well as possessing a rich architectural and artistic patrimony, the legacy of more than five centuries of history, the University of Alcalá is also firmly committed to technological innovation, collaboration with the worlds of business and industry, and the internationalization of its studies and research as proven by the more than 2,300 international students currently pursuing degrees at our institution.
