Alfonso X el Sabio Mare Nostrum University and Málaga Costa del Sol Women’s Handball Club have signed a partnership agreement to promote academic training in the sports industry and to ensure there are professionals ready to join an increasingly professionalised and demanding sector. UAX Mare Nostrum thus becomes the club’s official educational partner, a partnership model it has established with other renowned sports organisations such as Málaga CF and Atlético de Madrid.
“For UAX Mare Nostrum, this agreement is an opportunity to reinforce our commitment to the social and sporting development of Málaga. Furthermore, it allows us to highlight the role of education as a driver of economic development, nurturing the talent needed for the region’s companies and clubs to remain international leaders,” said Luis Couceiro, director of universities at the UAX Group and rector of UAX Mare Nostrum.
For her part, Pepa Moreno, president of the Málaga Costa del Sol Women’s Handball Club and a former handball player, emphasised that “signing this agreement enables us to create professional development opportunities for our staff and allows our players to consider their professional future within the sports industry once their playing careers have come to an end”.
Through this collaboration, both the club and the sporting events it organises serve as a real-world learning environment where students work in direct contact with professionals, gaining an understanding of their internal dynamics, management challenges and operational needs. Furthermore, opportunities for practical learning in real-world settings are created, bringing the classroom onto the playing field in areas such as health, performance, sports management and technology applied to the industry. Among the competitions mentioned in the agreement are the participation of UAX Mare Nostrum and its students in the Diego Carrasco Beach Handball Tournament and the Mare Nostrum Beach Handball Tournament, where attendees will also have the chance to visit the university’s new campus in Málaga.
Within the academic setting, both institutions will organise training clinics, with specialised sessions on injury prevention, recovery and nutrition for the players and club staff, to be delivered by experts from UAX Mare Nostrum. In addition, a programme of scholarships and study grants is included for first-team players, as well as other club professionals, helping them to balance their sporting careers with their university education.
Through this partnership, UAX Mare Nostrum reinforces its commitment to the economic, social and cultural development of Málaga, raising the profile of leading figures in women’s sport and consolidating a model of collaboration between the university and sport that is unique in the market and centred on university education that promotes shared values such as hard work and excellence.
The agreement combines UAX Mare Nostrum’s expertise in higher education – having created an academic model characterised by practical training activities in real-world settings – with the reputation of Club Balonmano Costa del Sol, whose first team competes in the top tier of Spanish women’s handball, the Guerras Iberdrola Women’s Division of Honour League, as well as in the European competition, the EHF European Cup Women 2025/26.
Educational partner: a new model of cooperation between universities and sport to promote employability
With this new partnership, UAX Mare Notrum is expanding a model of collaboration with the sports industry that transforms the relationship between the university and sports clubs into a structural alliance focused on employability, with training as the driving force behind talent development. This approach already enjoys the support of major names such as Málaga CF and Atlético de Madrid, with whom UAX has signed cooperation agreements that include scholarships and study grants, continuing professional development programmes, and practical, real-world training experiences for students.
This new model of cooperation for employment turns the university and sports clubs into strategic partners in creating authentic training environments tailored to the realities faced by elite athletes, industry professionals and students seeking to enter the sector. In this way, UAX Mare Nostrum reinforces its commitment to education that is closely linked to the professional world, where sport acts as a driving force for employability, innovation and economic development.
