The first of these opened its doors in Bilbao in 1938, largely thanks to the zeal of the Basque president (lehendakari) at the time, José Antonio Aguirre, an alumnus of the University of Deusto.

The northwest of the Basque region mostly sided with the Republican movement at this time, earning the wrath of General Francisco Franco.

As in the case of the Somosaguas campus of the Complutense University of Madrid, the dictatorial authorities wanted to keep the rebellious students away from urban areas.

In 2009 the UPV/EHU project "Euskampus", was labeled as "Campus of International Excellence", highest quality award by the Spanish Minister of Education.

Former rectors: The motto of UPV/EHU is a Basque-language verse Eman ta zabal zazu ("Give and distribute [the fruit]"), from Gernikako Arbola, a Basque anthem from the 19th century.

Álava Campus is seated in the south of Vitoria-Gasteiz: The Master and Doctoral School is responsible for coordinating and managing doctoral programmes and interdisciplinary research training, as well as coordinating and managing official master's degrees, with exception of those with professional attributes.

There are five schools affiliated with UPV/EHU: UPV/EHU conducts its Summer Courses, created in 1981, at the Miramar Palace in San Sebastián.

They consist of a series of lectures, talks, courses, and master classes on diverse subjects from different areas of knowledge.

The programme was allegedly run in cooperation with many organisations in the field of election monitoring, such as The Carter Center, Electoral Reform International Services (ERIS), International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Organization of American States (OAS) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) but such partnerships were not officially confirmed.