Universidad Internacional de La Rioja
Who are we?
Universidad Internacional de La Rioja – UNIR (Spain) is a 100% online university founded on a global vision of education directly linked to the market and the Society. UNIR facilitates an exclusive, innovative and high quality virtual model of higher education, which leans on a personalized, pro-active, and collaborative distance learning method of instruction.
UNIR provides international courses, in English and Spanish, and comprises an academic community of over 1.000 highly knowledgeable lecturers across the world, along with a strong team of more than 500 multidisciplinary staff members (including 200 tutors), working on research projects and support services (i.e. tutoring, legal, publishing, editing, technical, administrative, et cetera). Student number keeps increasing exponentially: over 26.000 in 2017. UNIR has premises in Spain (Logroño and Madrid), Colombia (Bogota), Argentina (Buenos Aires), Bolivia (Santa Cruz), and Mexico DF (Mexico), along with a number of collaboration agreements with Latin American and European universities, mainly. Furthermore, UNIR works hard to remove barriers, and to eliminate distance for learners with different profiles so that they can study at anytime and anywhere.
Why we are Participating in the Project
The Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education (UNIR iTED) has a longstanding experience in eLearning, learning innovation and Open Education development, testified by the fact that it holds a UNESCO Chair on eLearning. Further, UNIR has experience in the organisation of hackathon events such as HackForGood, supported by Telefonica Spain, and gathering more than 20 universities.
UNIR iTED also contributes to a+40 R&D projects, and works on selected scientific and humanistic fields of study with particular focus on information and communication technologies (ICT) applied to education (Technology-Enhanced Learning), all of them designed for practical implementation and subsequent exploitation in the market. Another strong field of work and research at UNIR is Innovation in education, aiming at a higher quality in education, which combines the study of good practices and innovative educational implementations.
Being a 100% online university, UNIR has a sound experience in the design and development of e-learning paths and in the development and maintenance of the infrastructure (platform) supporting e-learning delivery.
Our Role in the Project
UNIR will lead the preparation and development of the StrategyHack Curriculum and course, and will organise one Hackathon in Spain. Further, the partner will participate in project management, dissemination and will contribute to the preparation of all Intellectual Outcomes.
Our Team
Daniel Burgos
Daniel is a Full professor of Education & Communication Technologies at UNIR. He also holds the UNESCO Chair on eLearning and the ICDE Chair in Open Educational Resources at UNIR. He has been involved in a number of R&D projects. He holds degrees in Communication, Computer Science, Education, Anthropology and Bussiness Administration.
Shila Ganguly Almenar
Shila Ganguly works at Vice-rectorate for International Research She manages European and International research and innovation initiatives. + 8 years of experience, being involved in chemical and educational national work programmes (CDTI, ICEX or Ministry of Economy) and European Programmes (Erasmus+, H2020)
Natalia Padilla-Zea
Natalia Padilla-Zea works as teacher at the Engineering School and develops her research at the Universidad Internacional de La Rioja as part of the Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education (UNIR iTED). Her research is related to game-based learning, gamification and technology-enhanced learning.
