Felipe VI opened Spain's 2026/2027 university year at the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT) on 24 September at 11:30, in the Paraninfo of the university's Muralla del Mar campus. The ceremony brought together Diana Morant, the minister of Science, New idea and Universities, and university rectors. Two issues shaped the event: the climate emergency and inclusion. It also came as Leonor began her university studies at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
Antonio Sánchez Kaiser raised the event's sharpest challenge. In his inaugural lecture at UPCT, he spoke about his daughter Vega, who was born with a disability, and asked whether universities and the wider world are designed for the people who must use them.
He framed the issue around what Vega can see and the environment other people have built around her. Sánchez Kaiser presented that question as a test for universities and said there is still a long way to go in responding to diversity.
Morant placed the university system within a wider crisis. She referred to solastalgia, a term coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht for the pain people feel when the place they belong to deteriorates before their eyes. She used the term to discuss the effects of wildfires, which she called one of the most painful signs of the climate emergency.
Morant said universities must help protect the conditions for shared progress. She warned that society is losing a way of living together and an idea of improvement for everyone. Fundamental Enlightenment values are also under challenge. She named freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, reason, knowledge and science as the principles that have driven progress.
The ceremony began shortly before midday with Canticorum Iubilo by Georg Friedrich Händel. The Unidad de Música de la Academia General del Aire y del Espacio performed the piece alongside the choir of the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena.
Felipe VI attended with Diana Morant. Rectors from the Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades (CRUE) represented the university community, including its president, Julián Garde. UPCT organised the event with the Universidad de Murcia. Reports by La Verdad and UPCT noted that 35 rectors attended. The solemn opening is one of the year's basic academic events and officially starts a course that will bring more than two million university students into Spain's classrooms. EFE also listed Morant's participation in the official programme for the king's visit.
Cartagena gave the ceremony a clear institutional setting, but its message went beyond protocol. Morant linked science and education to the damage caused by wildfires. Sánchez Kaiser's lecture showed what can happen when institutions are designed without enough attention to different abilities. Together, the speeches put access, knowledge and scientific responsibility at the centre of the university system's public duty. RTVE's coverage also placed the event within the new academic year and the wider public role of universities.
The ceremony came as Leonor began university life in Madrid. The Objective reported that Casa Real had announced her choice of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in advance. She began studying political science there in early September 2026. That timing adds a royal and educational dimension to the Cartagena event, though its basic subject remained Spain's university system.
