This 2022 we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the creation of the Menéndez Pelayo International University. Ninety years of history anticipating the future. On August 23, 1932, the Founding Decree of the then Santander International Summer University was published, later refounded as the Menéndez Pelayo International University.
Since its inception, it was conceived as an international center for higher studies dedicated to the creation and dissemination of science and culture and a modernizing instrument through higher education. Its most emblematic activity has been its Summer Courses at the Palacio de la Magdalena in Santander, which have historically been an indisputable agent of the cultural, artistic, scientific and political evolution of our country, with the participation of the most outstanding thinkers, artists , scientists and politicians, national and international. At a time of constant change, of events that alter the lives of millions of people, relations between countries, the economy and development worldwide, it is essential to offer spaces for reflection and debate on the reality we live in and help prepare us for the challenges that await us. The UIMP aspires to contribute to this as a meeting forum for dialogue, coexistence, analysis and critical spirit, as well as for the promotion of ideas, the arts, sciences and humanities. We hope that these first nine decades of life are just the beginning of the history of an institution that must continue to lead the way in the future.
And as Pedro Salinas, the first general secretary of the UIMP, said: "There is no reality of human enterprise that does not start with a dream, and human realities end when they stop dreaming... My motto is to continue dreaming of the International University, because only by dreaming it better, broader, richer than it has been, it can continue to be made”.
