The University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) has welcomed a group of 19 African students studying at the institution thanks to scholarships from the Erasmus+ KA171 Programme and the Canary Islands-Africa Scholarship Programme of the Government of the Canary Islands. The Rector of ULPGC, Lluís Serra, along with the Manager of the University Foundation of Las Palmas, Eduardo Manrique de Lara, presided over the event in the Aula de Piedra of the Institutional Headquarters.
These 19 students are part of a total of 181 African students pursuing studies at ULPGC during the current academic year, distributed across undergraduate degrees (133 students), master's degrees (40 students), and Doctoral programmes (8 students).
Nine of these students are participating within the Erasmus+ framework, receiving instruction in the Master's in Hispano-African Relations, Degree in Translation and Interpreting, Degree in Spanish Language and Literature, Degree in Computer Engineering, and Degree in Marine Sciences. Most of them hail from Cabo Verde, Algeria, Senegal, and Ghana.
The Erasmus+ KA171 programme facilitates ULPGC's international mobility with universities from non-associated countries, including various African nations. Since 2015, ULPGC has recorded 349 mobility actions linked to Africa, comprising 190 incoming students and 81 incoming faculty members.
Additionally, for the past nine years, ULPGC has hosted African postgraduate students through the Canary Islands-Africa Scholarship Programme of the Government of the Canary Islands, managed by the University Foundation of Las Palmas. This academic year, ten more African students join thanks to these scholarships, coming from Mauritania, Cabo Verde, Benin, and Ghana. They will be pursuing master's degrees in African Studies; Business Administration and Human Resources; Tourism, digitalization, innovation and intelligence; and Audiovisual Culture and Literature.
The reception of these students aligns with ULPGC's Bridge to Africa strategy, which aims to strengthen ties with the African continent through academic mobility, training, and knowledge exchange. The 181 African students represent nearly 1% of the institution's total student body, a figure that continues to grow.
