In the late 2005, the Vicerrectorado de Extensión of the universities put up the Atalaya Project, with financial and technical support of the Directorate General of the Department of Innovation, Science and Enterprise of Junta de Andalusia.

The fact that the ten Andalusian universities embark on a joint project is not, fortunately, a novelty in the context of our university system, however, the fact that this initiative focuses on the "forgotten" by the Vicerrectorado de Extensión of the university is itself a novelty, not only in the Andalusian region but also in the entire state.

For this reason, the universities of Andalusia and the Directorate General of Universities believe that, after an extensive period of many efforts and activities on culture in the university, this was a good time to put the Vicerrectorado de Extensión of the University in the center of our attention.

Under the name of Atalaya, several projects are located with the common aim to increase in value key initiatives, which are already existing in our universities in the cultural field and to plan new actions that allow the dissemination and cultural Project, from the Independence of ideology and social commitment, as part of the duty of every university to integrate with its surroundings.

Among the many measures envisaged in the framework of the Atalaya -Andalusian Universities Culture Award, Canal Cultural theme, Meeting of Andalusian university performing arts, training projects, photography contests- we present here the first studies carried out in the cultural  Observatory of Atalaya Project.