Rectors and officials from around twenty Ibero-American universities approved a 25-point agenda in Madrid this Tuesday. The agenda proposes regulating artificial intelligence (AI), defending Spanish and Portuguese as languages ​​of science, and expanding academic mobility within the region.

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The agreement was reached during the Ibero-American University Knowledge Forum, held at the headquarters of the Instituto Cervantes. It recognizes the autonomous public university as an indispensable pillar for democracy and social cohesion, and calls on governments to provide sufficient and sustainable funding.

“We face numerous challenges in each of our countries that require a collective, cross-cutting effort,” stated Susana Sumelzo, Secretary of State for Ibero-America and the Caribbean. She noted that the agenda will be presented at the XXX Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday in Madrid.

A key commitment is the promotion of Spanish and Portuguese as languages ​​for research, scientific production, and teaching. Sumelzo emphasized that both are global languages ​​shared by more than 800 million people and should also serve as languages ​​in which research can be conducted.

🎓 Iberoamérica aprueba la Carta de Movilidad Académica para facilitar el intercambio estudiantil en la región.

🌎 La Declaración de Alicante crea además grupos de trabajo sobre microcredenciales y movilidad del profesorado.https://t.co/0rG2DHeu4p

— Cumbre Iberoamericana (@CumbreIberoA) October 22, 2026

The text reads, “Ibero-America adopts the Academic Mobility Charter to facilitate student exchange within the region. The Alicante Declaration also establishes working groups on micro-credentials and faculty mobility.”

Furthermore, the institutions agreed to establish an Ibero-American University Knowledge Network—with this forum serving as its foundational event—and the proposal includes facilitating student mobility and the mutual recognition of academic degrees between countries.

Odir Fernández, Rector of the National Autonomous University of Honduras, highlighted that Spain serves as a benchmark for higher education in Latin America, a fact reflected in the migration of Latin American students to that country. Meanwhile, Jacqueline Sepúlveda, Rector of the University of Concepción in Chile, advocated for the mobility of students and faculty as a means to strengthen research and the intellectual sovereignty of our peoples.

The agenda also calls for shared regulation of AI and stipulates that technological advancement must be subordinate to human dignity, as well as to the sustainable use of water and energy in data centers.

“We need to move beyond universities that are rooted in the 19th century in terms of infrastructure, the 20th century in terms of their faculty, and the 21st century in terms of their students,” Fernández stated, referring to the digital divide.

#FromTheSouth News Bits | Belgium: Young demonstrators took to the streets of Brussels to protest education reforms that would raise university tuition and extend teaching hours without additional pay. pic.twitter.com/IBp4sxza26

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) October 27, 2026

Kate Manne, a philosophy professor at Cornell University, situates the lawsuit from a former student alleging she was gang-raped at the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024 within a broader, deeply troubling campus “rape culture.” The specific details of Jane Doe’s case are horrific, but Manne also points to shocking statistics and examples showing that sexual misconduct is rife and often taken less seriously than other student infractions. She is critical of Cornell’s response and culture, but emphasizes that, tragically, this normalization of misogyny is widespread across many American campuses. A disturbing, important read.

In a deeply misogynistic society, groups of boys and men routinely bond over humiliating and exploiting women, as Soraya Chemaly has written. And the victim is not only physically and emotionally traumatized following one of the most fundamental imaginable violations: They are likely to be doubted and undermined at every subsequent step of the process. In Jane Doe’s case, the district attorney did not bring any charges after relying on the investigation done by campus police; they didn’t even speak with the men involved. The district attorney just announced that they are reopening the case on the basis of new information contained in the civil lawsuit, and in recognition of the fact that “it can take years of therapy and healing for victims of sexual assaults to fully process and understand what happened to them.”