All the activities of the university are guided by the values of merit, ability, efficiency, transparency, fairness, equality and respect for the environment. The university has around 18,000 students and has a strong internationalization, being the third in Europe in the proportion of graduate students participating in the European Erasmus mobility program. UC3M is included in the QS Top 50 Under 50 ranking as one of the top 50 universities created in the last 50 years. UC3M is a pioneer among European universities in the development of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). The first UC3M MOOCs were released in February 2013 and by mid-2016 there will be more around 15 MOOCs on edX and MiríadaX. UC3M has also fostered the inclusion of SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses) in on-campus teaching since 2012 through Khan Academy and Open Edx platforms.

UC3M has been awarded at the QS Reimagine Education 2015 Awards on Hybrid Learning for the use of SPOCs as remedial courses for freshmen (so-called “zero courses”).The GAST research group (Telematic Applications and Services Group) from the Department of Telematic Engineering at UC3M will be in charge of the development of this project. The GAST research group is directed by Prof. Carlos Delgado Kloos and develops its activity in the fields of e-learning, ubiquitous computation and web technologies, including e.g., MOOCs, SPOCs, learning analytics and adaptive learning, among many others. The GAST research group has about 50 researchers working in three laboratories.