My dearest colleagues at the Compostela member institutions,

A very warm 'happy new year' to you from the Compostela Group of Universities! For many 2012 will bring even bigger challenges as 2011, but being the eternal optimist: I see challenge as just another word for an opportunity. Collectively we can deal with the biggest problems; alone we risk just becoming weaker, so joining forces within the Compostela Group is more important than ever. Especially in the current fiscal climate the Compostela Group has the task of bringing member institutions together and seeking truly innovative ways to serve our common purpose: to walk the way to knowledge together.

The kick-off meeting of CERES, coordinated by one of the partner members, Universidad de Oviedo took place in the premises of the Arab Academy for Maritime Science and Technology of Alexandria. The CGU is responsible for the monitoring and quality control of the above funded Tempus project which will last for 3 years.

The call for applicants for MOVER Project (coordinated by the University of Murcia with the participation of the Compostela Group as associate) is open until 1st March. The project provides teachers, students and managament staff from regional Asian universities with mobility opportunities to European higher education institutions.

The Compostela Group of Universities pays tribute to Mr. Václav Havel, our II International Prize Grupo Compostela-Xunta de Galicia

Writing about Mr. Havel is not an easy task: how could we gather in a few words all his wide and remarkable labour? He was a playwright, an essayist, a poet, a dissident, a politician, a revolutionary, and above all a real defender of the Human Rights.

Some of us had the chance to meet Mr. Havel personally in 1998 when the Compostela Group of Universities, in collaboration with the Xunta de Galicia, decided to award him with the II International Prize Grupo Compostela-Xunta de Galicia. We found a resilient and unfailingly polite gentleman as well as strong-willed leader. His human essence together with his long political experience had made him just memorable: certainly, after five years in and out of Communist prisons and two decades under close secret-police surveillance, he became the President of the Czech Republic to practise empathy and defend Freedom.

He passed away as a person, but his memory and the result of his labour will definitely survive and stay with us for ever. In the name of the Compostela Group of Universities’ community we join the thousands of people who these days pay honour to Mr Václav Havel. We would like to express the greatest sympathies to the Havel’s Family as well as to the Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation VIZE 97 which continues the wonderful labour that Mr. Havel carried out.

The CGU Executive Committee