Basque Summer University
It promotes courses, book publications, Internet services, congresses, professional meetings and postgraduate degrees at university level and in Basque.
The social, economic, political and cultural processes set in motion by industrialisation and liberalism during the 19th century led to an even greater decline in Basque.
Seeing the success of these days and the discourse given by the mathematician Carlos Santamaría Ansa on the need to create a Basque University, the Euskaldunen Biltzarra, Ikas and Fededunak associations decided to organise summer courses in 1973 with the support of Euskaltzaindia.
Similar initiatives that already existed for Catalan and Occitan served as antecedents and references; for example, the Universitat Catalana d'Estiu had been in operation since 1968.
For example, in 1995 it offered 45 courses distributed in 26 departments; in total there were 750 teaching hours, in classes, practices, seminars and outings, with more than 650 participants.
The number of teachers and students who worked in Basque at university level in that year would not exceed 4,000 people, and of all of them more than 650 participated in the UEU, this being proof of the success and contribution of these courses, in spite of the limited economic resources it had.
In the field of book publishing, since its inception the UEU has pursued two objectives: on the one hand, to create a bibliographic infrastructure at university level, and on the other, to refine the terminology and syntax in Basque.
The courses have always been organized from the thematic sections of the UEU, which are the following: Anthropology, Theater, Architecture, Art, Bertsolaritza, Economy, Philosophy, Physics, Glotodidactics, History of Linguistics, Informatics, Translation, Journalism, Chemistry, Climatology and Meteorology, Literature, Mathematics, Music, Natural Sciences, Health Sciences, Pedagogy, Psychology, Sexology, Sociolinguistics, Sociology, and Law.
Three of its most relevant activities are the following: The following entities are similar to the UEU in that they work to promote the extensive use of a minority language at the university level:
