Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY) in collaboration with Fatoni University, Thailand held an International Summer Course Program on Cross Cultural Understanding online (25-26 / 12/2020). This program was attended by students majoring in Malay from Fatoni University as participants while a lecturer from the Department of Indonesian Language and Literature Education, UNY, Beniati Lestyarini, M.Pd. and Haryanto are appointed to deliver the course. The agenda opened by the Acting Rector of UNY.

On December 11, 2020, the Aksa Biantara Team representing UNY Robotics team from student activity unit of Technology Engineering participated in the 2020 Widyatama International Innovation & Academic Competition at Widyatama University. This team participated in Instrumentation & Control Contest II category and won 2nd place with an innovation presented as "Dynamic Float Telemetry Based On Blimp Drone for Multi-node Disaster Detection System".

Student and Alumni Affairs of Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta held a webinar with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The webinar had the theme "Developing a clean and integrated Next Generation of a Nation " on Wednesday, December 16, 2020. This webinar has Dr. Albertina Ho Rusmana, S.H, M.H., the KPK supervisory board, as the main speaker.

The event, which was held online, was attended by approximately 225 students and attended offline by the head of the Student Organization and the leader of the Student Activity Unit located in the UNY digital library.

Kamasetra,  one of UNY Student Activity Units, released an audio drama entitled Salah Kaprah (common mistake that is naturally done by many). The audio drama was released in two parts, the first part was released on December 6, 2020 while the second part was released on December 12, 2020. The audio drama was uploaded to Kamasetra UNY's Youtube and Instagram accounts and available for public to enjoy.

The Digital Literacy Award is one of the new series of Pitch the Future Competition where each team is given free access to Adobe Creative Cloud for 6 months to help each team in completing a mini-challenge consisting of home decarbonization events, tracking and reducing CO2 emissions from vehicles , Decarbonizing Road Freight Transport, and Electric Mobility. The winner of the Digital Literacy Award is the one that is able to deliver the most creative innovations, based on whatever problem management, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication skill.

“Ngrombo 1, Karangmojo, Gunungkidul is a hamlet that has preserved culture in the fields of music and dance, such as reog for children. However, less effort are set for fine arts,”said Nur Azizah, an Elementary School Teacher Education (PGSD) study program student of UNY.

She has set batik training for children as her community service program. Nur Azizah said that she wanted to provide an alternative to making batik in an easier way that was suitable for children.

Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta officially inaugurated Prof. Dr. Harun, M.Pd. and Prof. Dr. Dimyati, M.Si. as the 167th and 168th UNY professor on December 12, 2020. Prof. Dr. Harun, M.Pd. was acknowledged as a professor in the field of Early Childhood Education at the Faculty of Education, while Prof. Dr. Dimyati, M.Si. inaugurated as a professor in the field of Sports Psychology at the Faculty of Sport Science, UNY.

Covid-19 does not stop the 2020 Energy Saving Car Contest (KMHE). This competition was continued to be held at Universitas Indonesia on 26-30 November 2020 online. In this competition, the Garuda UNY Team won two titles, namely 1st place in the Internal Combustion Engine and Transmission Criteria and 3rd Winner Overall Criteria.

UNY Postgraduate Students Association have implemented community service programs through the Sahabat Desa (SADESA) program. This program was carried out online on 19 November 2020 with the theme "Strong Literacy, Great Village: Building a Sustainable Community Reading Culture".