Ladies and gentlemen, Excellences, rector Auziņš. It is a true pleasure to be here and open the conference which is focused on a very key issue about how a small university in a small country can successfully flourish and develop. A few words what is the advisory board of Latvia's University Convent. Its main task is to be advisers to Rector Auziņš and to the Senate of the University on the issues of strategy, on issues how to best implement the vision of the University of Latvia. University of Latvia has a vision and it is very ambitious. It is stated that, within the next 10 years, the University of Latvia wants to become a leading scientific university in the Baltic Sea Region and to have a high ranking among other European Universities. There is no doubt that a large gap exists today between where we are and where we want to be. If we look at the webometrics rating, then University of Latvia is perhaps among the one first thousand of Universities in the world. Rector Auziņš has publicly acknowledged that we have serious problems in the higher education and we have a good chance to tackle them. Mr Auziņš has also said that the thesis that the higher education in Latvia is of a high quality and competitive is perhaps not entirely true. So it means that we have a challenging task ahead of us to implement the very ambitious vision of the University of Latvia. It seems that the whole constituency both, the alumni, the students and the society at large is awaiting those changes. In the conference today, I think, it will be a very good chance for us to decide and to discuss what are the best ways to move closer to our vision and to implement our strategy.

There is a good chance to discuss how best to attain the economies of scale. It is no secret that Latvia has 34 universities and, if we count colleges, 60 establishments of higher education. The question is not whether the consolidation is necessary, in my view, the question is rather what is the best way to attain it. Can University of Latvia become the leading force behind the consolidation, an open question: should University of Latvia first demonstrate itself as being highly efficient in delivering high quality of education in all subjects that it teaches.

First, this is another issue, which I hope,  we will be able to discuss today, at the same time I also think that consolidation does not mean having just one larger actor on the scene. I think it is extremely important that Latvia keeps even some other higher education establishments that have been able over years to demonstrate high quality of teaching and degrees which are competitive internationally, here I primarily mean Riga School of Economics. I think also that  Riga School of Economics demonstrates that in order to have a highly competitive education one cannot have any side steps from the quality of the diploma and also that sometimes highly innovative solutions are necessary, including the need to change legislation to, for instance, allow teaching in the English language. As you know, presently the only reason why the school is able to keep its teaching in the English language is the fact that this is regulated by intergovernmental agreement. So, I think there might be a need to think what other steps are needed, perhaps legislative in order to ensure that the quality of education has no compromises. This conference is also a good opportunity to discuss about the best links between university and the needs of business community. The European Commission has stated in its communication on the need to modernize the European universities among others that there needs to be a closer link between the higher education and innovation and research and business. It is important that we take these recommendations seriously. At the same time I think it is important to recall that higher education is not only measured in its direct effect on business, it is not.  There are a lot of externalities, positive externalities that it creates, and, therefore, it is important to consider its value in itself. I am very glad that Rector Auziņš is willing to roll up his sleeves to implement the very ambitious strategy of the University of Latvia. The national poet of Latvia, Rainis, has said: “Pastāvēs, kas pārvērtīsies”. It is slightly difficult to translate this to English, but it approximately means that the one who is going to last is the one who is willing to change. I think this should be the leading motto for the University of Latvia in the years to come. Thank you.