The Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) is the only Spanish’ public university for distance, online and blended higher education at a national level.
Founded in 1972, it is the largest public university in Spain and the largest campus in Europe, with more than 200,000 students annually, including over 150,000 in official degree programmes. Headquartered in Spain, UNED combines teaching, research and knowledge transfer with a wide academic offer spanning undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, lifelong learning, and continuing education. Its model is supported by an extensive network of Associated Centres across Spain and abroad. UNED is also a partner in the OpenEU European Universities alliance, is strongly committed to open education and open science through initiatives such as its UNED Abierta portal and institutional repository e-Spacio, and hosts four UNESCO Chairs, including the UNESCO Chair in Distance Education.
The UNESCO Chair in Distance Education (CUED)
The UNESCO Chair in Distance Education (CUED) at UNED was established in 1997. It promotes research, training, innovation, documentation and international cooperation in the field of distance, online and digital education.
The Chair brings together a multidisciplinary network of more than 90 members, including a UNED management team and academic council, as well as an international advisory board and network staff. Its work focuses particularly on equity and inclusion, educational innovation, lief-long learning, digital transformation, and quality development in open and distance learning at a higher-education level.
Ángeles Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua
Ángeles Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua holds a PhD in Psychology from UNED and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment at the Faculty of Psychology of the UNED.
A specialist in quality and educational innovation in distance education in digital environments, she has led the UNESCO Chair in Distance Education (CUED) at the UNED since 2021. She also serves as Deputy Vice-Rector for the coordination of the OpenEU alliance of European Universities at UNED, within the Vice-Rectorate for Internationalisation and Multilingualism. At the European level, within the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU), she leads the EMPOWER expert group on Student Support and is a member of the e-Xcellence reviewers’ group. She has held senior leadership roles in UNED’s University Institute for Distance Education (IUED) for more than 15 years, including as Director and as Deputy Director for Faculty Training. Her main research and professional interests focus on distance, online, and digital higher education; student support, retention, and well-being; educational quality and innovation; and the digital transformation of universities, alongside research in positive psychology and optimal human functioning.
