Baltic University Programme
3rd Rectors Conference
11 – 13 October 2011
During its first 20 years the Programme, now with close to 230 participating universities and other institutes of higher learning, has grown to be one of the largest university networks worldwide and much has been achieved in education, research and applied projects. Under the auspices of the Programme, a number of university courses, especially on the topic of environmental science, regional studies and sustainability, have been produced. Thousands of teachers and students have met during conferences, teachers’ training programmes, summer courses and other activities. More than 100,000 students have studied within the Programme since its start. Presently close to 10,000 students register in the Programme annually at more than 100 universities.
In October 2006 a first Rectors conference was convened at Uppsala University. The Rectors conference held in 2006 attracted in total 160 participants from 90 universities within the region.
At the 2006 conference a formal foundation of the cooperation was established on the basis of inter-university contracts between Uppsala University, as the coordinator and initiator of the Programme, and the participating universities. Today more than 70 universities have signed such a contract. The 2nd BUP Rectors Conference was held in 2009 with 120 representatives and 70 rectors from 74 universities and institutes of higher learning from the Baltic Sea Region. At this conference a final declaration was signed to outline the directions of continued cooperation.
To ensure that the coming Rectors Conference will be interesting and relevant for the network a Preparatory Meeting for the Rectors Conference was held on February 17-18th 2011 at Uppsala University. In all 74 colleagues from 62 universities, 12 countries and 45 cities from the Baltic Sea Region participated and the whole network was involved in the preparations for the Conference and in the planning of the BUP network activities for the next two years. We want to express our sincere thanks for all the numerous contributions that member universities are prepared to provide for the network during the coming two years.
I have the honour and pleasure to invite Rectors or their representatives from all interested universities, both those who are already members of the network and new ones, to a conference in Uppsala on the 12-13 October, 2011.
Note that one delegate from all BUP member universities in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are exempted from the conference fee.
One of the main aims of the conference will be the elaboration of a new formula of cooperation between universities in the network to organizing seminars, conferences and other events for education and research for sustainable development, as well as to exchange students, PhD students and staff.
Paula Lindroos
BUP Director