The process of modernisation and economic and social transformation in Spain in recent years has not been paralleled by transformation in the Spanish university. Napoleonic in nature and rooted to the past, the institution has indeed grown in terms of the numbers of centres, students and lecturers, above all in the 1970s (and perhaps even more so than its European counterparts), but it has not evolved in the way required by society to meet scientific, technical and social demands. If we analyse what has taken place since 1960, we find a rapid process of urbanisation and industrialisation with an increase in income per capita, a rise in population and an increasing female participation in higher education to the point where almost half of the total number of university students are now women. At present, there are 670,000 students in the Spanish university system. This is almost nine times the 1960 total and the figure will quite possibly approach 800,000 at the end of the present decade. With the aim of catering for this demand, new universities have been created, the number rising from 14 in 1968 to 30 in 1983, and nearly 300 university centres have been set up among faculties, higher technical schools and university colleges. However, it should be remembered that such increases have not been accompanied by a proportional rise in either human resources or the minimum material resources needed to cover university requirements adequately. In particular, no firm policy regarding the training of university staff has been put into practice, and the general rule has been one of improvisation and the delegation of full responsibility to staff who have not had sufficient time either to train themselves, or (in many cases) to obtain a doctorate. This lack of resources and above all of specialised teachers has led to a big deterioration in the quality of university education. In fact, the large numbers of students-a consequence of greater student access-is the most frequently mentioned reason for the low level of higher education in Spain. On the other hand, it is clear that the idea of a departmental structure, which was introduced in the 1970s and which was to be supported by the General Education Act of 1970 along the lines of the Anglo-Saxon model never 'gelled', and only led to a transformation of the existing chairs into departments. At the same time, the study schedules and the academic awards have remained somewhat static within a framework of offers of, perhaps, classical degree courses which cannot meet rapidly developing contemporary needs. However, according to a recent ministerial report which accompanied the project for the University Reform Act, the most important consequences of this disordered