In Sant Lluís (Menorca) lived Mrs. Van Oppen, daughter of a British military officer stationed in India when it was still under the direct control of the British Crown. She gave private English lessons which, beyond grammatical and phonetic foundations, "were filled with landscapes, experiences, and lifestyles" that far surpassed the daily experience and canons of Western culture known until then by two Menorcan children born in the late 60s. "She encouraged exploring the unknown, opening up to new frontiers, accepting diversity. This experience, undoubtedly, would fuel our interest in opening up to new horizons. Alicia often comments that these English sessions were the seed of her later scientific vocation". Alicia is Alicia Sintes (1969), professor and doctor in Physics from the UIB; and her brother, Tomàs Sintes (1966), also a professor and doctor in Physics from the UIB, tells us about it.

The University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) will incorporate in the 2026-2027 academic year the new degree in Marine Sciences, a qualification especially linked to the island reality and the management of the Balearic coastline. The new study will offer 35 places and will train professionals specialized in the study and management of marine and coastal environments from disciplines such as biology, geology, chemistry, physics, and technology.

The University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) has disappeared from the 2026 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), known as the Shanghai Ranking. The Balearic university thus ceases to be among the 1,000 best university institutions in the world, according to a classification that is published every August 15 and which this year places 30 Spanish universities among the first thousand.

The Government will ensure that teachers and technicians of Early Childhood Education in subsidized centers of the first cycle, from 0 to 3 years old, are incorporated into the delegated payroll payment system from January 2027. The Governing Council approved this Friday the decree-law of urgent measures in educational matters, which modifies the financing model of the stage launched in 2023 with free schooling. The Department of Education and Universities will promote the necessary actions during the second half of this year so that the new system can come into operation in January 2027. In the case of cooperatives, the regulation provides for the possibility that they directly receive the full financing module.

The vice-dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and professor of Administrative Law, Joana Maria Socias, died this Saturday, as reported by the University. The university community and the rector, Jaume Carot, have expressed their condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of the professor.

We already know what these people want, as we know from Maria del Mar Bonet's great song denouncing fascism, which in these times resonates in our heads too often. Now they want the photograph of a young woman with a hijab to weigh more than an academic record, for prejudice to prevail over merit, and to turn a university graduation into an identity battleground, because that is where they feel most comfortable, stirring up fears even if they are the most unfounded.

Just a few years ago, the UIB Faculty of Law had an image that many associated with a traditional way of understanding legal studies. The Jovellanos building, with its solid concrete and long corridors, was perceived by part of the university community as a distant space, not conducive to student life and marked by a classical academic culture. Two years after the arrival of the team led by Dr. Aina Salom at the Dean's Office, the picture is different.

The Vox deputy in Congress, Jorge Campos, has continued with the controversy he generated after attacking a student with a hijab at the graduation ceremony of the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). After the academic institution defended the student —who has a brilliant curriculum—, Campos has lashed out at the university's management team and has even stated that the UIB's "separatist Catalanism" is an "entry point to Islamization".

The Vox deputy in Congress Jorge Campos has generated a strong controversy after publishing a message on social networks questioning that a student with a hijab was one of those in charge of speaking during the graduation ceremony of the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB).

A total of 1,375 students who have completed their undergraduate studies at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) this 2025-26 academic year participated this Thursday in the graduation ceremony, which took place at the Son Moix stadium in Palma.

Aina Salom (Alaró, 1980) took over the deanship of the Faculty of Law at the UIB with the aim of marking a new era at the center. Since her arrival, she has committed to opening the Faculty to society, strengthening the use of Catalan, and promoting modern, innovative, and student-centered legal training. Her project seeks to transform the Faculty into a more accessible, dynamic space connected to professional and social reality.

The Miquel Jaume-Palma Futsal Foundation and the University of the Balearic Islands have signed a collaboration agreement that will involve the creation of a women's futsal team made up exclusively of university students. This is a pioneering initiative that aims to strengthen the link between elite sport and academic training on the Balearic campus.

The classrooms of the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) are emptying earlier and earlier. After Easter, coinciding with the start of the tourist season, absenteeism is particularly accentuated in higher courses, where many students combine studies and work. “Between 30 and 40% of students may stop coming to class because they are working,” assures professor David Abril, who considers this trend “structural” and closely linked to the reality of the labor market and the need to pay for studies autonomously. However, the increasing absenteeism of students throughout the entire course is a topic that occupies the university community.

Approximately 1,500 undergraduate students from the University of the Balearic Islands will participate in the joint graduation ceremony that will take place on July 9 at the Son Moix stadium in Palma. Registrations are still open, so the final number of participants may vary slightly.

The Balearic Islands will conduct this September the largest count of homeless people and those in situations of residential exclusion that has been promoted so far in the Archipelago. The initiative, promoted by the Social Observatory of the Balearic Islands (OSIB) of the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and the Network for Inclusion EAPN Balearic Islands, will deploy nearly 500 volunteers in municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants with the aim of sizing a reality that remains largely hidden.

María Pombo, one of the influencers most followed in Spain, has been the protagonist of two of the questions on the Spanish exam for the Selectividad (university entrance exam) taken by students from the Balearic Islands this Tuesday, the first day of the PAU tests in the Archipelago. Specifically, the content creator appears in the question where students are asked to identify and explain the syntactic relationships established between the clauses in the following fragment: "The controversy surrounding María Pombo regarding reading has demonstrated the capacity that social networks have today to fix a debate in public conversation".

“You’re almost there. You’ve completed a demanding high school program, and now the most important thing is to trust yourselves and arrive with a clear head.” This is the main recommendation made by Fèlix Coll, a former student of IES Biel Martí de Ferreries and one of the students with the highest grades in the 2025 Selectividad (university entrance exam), to the students taking it this year. He achieved a score of 9.35 without weighting and is now studying Electronic, Industrial, and Automatic Engineering at the UIB. Coll offers advice for facing the three days of evaluations in the University Access Test (PAU), which this year will be taken by 4,950 students from educational centers in the Balearic Islands on June 2, 3, and 4. The figure is slightly higher than last year, when 4,860 students participated. The majority of the examinees are from Mallorca (80.9%), followed by Ibiza (9.6%), Menorca (9.1%), and Formentera (0.4%). Women continue to be the majority, with 60.2% of the total.

The University of the Balearic Islands projected this Thursday the documentary Global Grab: Mozambique's Coal and Jindal's extractive curse, an investigation into the social and environmental impacts of coal extraction in Mozambique by the Indian group Jindal. The screening is part of the Scholars at Risk program and was attended by the journalist and director of the film, Anand Mangnale, persecuted by the Indian government and hosted for the past year by the UIB.

The 2026 Selectividad (PAU) will incorporate a significant reinforcement of control mechanisms with the implementation of radio frequency detectors and the approval of a new agreement on the regulation of fraudulent conduct and sanctions. The device, promoted by the Ministry of Education and Universities and the UIB, will be applied during the tests scheduled for June 2, 3, and 4, 2026, and establishes a system of measures ranging from reprimands to the total invalidation of the call in the most serious cases.