The UOC offers it employees flexibility in managing their working hours and work location

Apart from teleworking, and in order to promote an optimal balance between work and personal life, the UOC offers its employees the following options:

• A 10% reduction in the working day to care for a child under twelve or a person with disabilities, with entitlement to receive 100% remuneration for the first three years.
• A 20% reduction in the working day to care for a child or a person with disabilities, with entitlement to receive 90% remuneration.
• 15 days’ unpaid leave for formal or recognized training, whether face-to-face or otherwise, or to care for a family member.
• Special training leave: whenever the training is related to the professional role, a leave period between six months and one year may be requested.
• Family-work balancing leave: nine free days for balancing personal, work and family life.

Training professionals in CSR

The report also describes the implementation, during the 2014-2015 academic year, of the first University Master’s Degree in Corporate Social Responsibility. This is a commitment by the UOC to train professionals capable of implementing CSR projects and management systems in their organizations, transforming them from the perspective of responsibility, in order to make them economically, environmentally and socially sustainable in the medium and long term.

Within this context, the UOC wishes to contribute to more sustainable tourism, and is doing so through the University Master’s Degree in Sustainable Tourism and ICTs, which trains professionals in tourism to be able to respond to the needs of the sector and today’s society with regard to sustainability, ICTs, inclusion and governance.

Similarly, it offers the EHEA Bachelor’s Degree in Tourism and the Master's Degree in Tourist Destination Strategy and Sustainable Management UNWTO-UOC. Both courses are accredited with the UNWTO.TedQual Certification awarded by the World Tourism Organization, a specialist agency of the United Nations. The UOC is the first online university in the world to receive this certification.

Knowledge transfer as a social improvement tool

The UOC is firmly committed to knowledge transfer as a tool for tackling the problems on the social agenda. The UOC's main area of expertise is e-learning, which is why it advises companies, entrepreneurs and institutions in this sphere. This is illustrated by the gold medal the UOC received at the international Learning Impact awards for the Present@ tool, an interactive video blog which makes it possible to upload large-format video presentations to the Internet, watch them and comment on them with ease.

Development Cooperation

The UOC is working to promote and facilitate university development cooperation and to contribute, as a university, towards the human development of societies through teaching and research. It is doing this through the creation of a specific area designed with this objective. Its aims include promoting cooperation as a cross-cutting skill on training courses and encouraging social practices and voluntary work.

Furthermore, as proof of its commitment to social responsibility, the UOC has signed up to the Principles of the United Nations Global Compact.

The UOC, a socially responsible university

Consequently, one of the UOC's institutional objectives for 2016 is “to consolidate social responsibility as a distinctive feature of its internal culture and reputation with a view to making the UOC a socially responsible institution that goes beyond its legal obligations”, points out the UOC's President, Josep A. Planell.

In this regard, the UOC sees social responsibility as a proactive tool that is able to respond to social needs and demands, in order to contribute to a better and more integrated, equitable, efficient and ethical society.