WELCOME ADDRESS BY THE HOST UNIVERSITY

On behalf of the University of Zagreb, the host of the Conference on Higher Education Reform, I extend a very warm welcome to all participants to the Centre for Advanced Academic Studies of the University of Zagreb and to the city of Dubrovnik.

The Dubrovnik Conference builds on foundations laid by the Novi Sad Initiative in 2005 and will focus on questions related to higher education institutional reform in creating the European Higher Education Area and particularly the questions that have not yet been properly embedded in the Bologna Process.

The Conference will provide a platform for exchange of relevant experience in selected topics including:

1. Professionalisation of public management of higher education
2. University legal status
3. Acceleration of Higher Education institutional reforms
4. Standardisation of the student experience across the EHEA with regard to student organisations and representation.

The Conference will also address questions relevant to higher education in South East Europe by setting them in a wider European context.

Governments in the region will be encouraged to continue to amend higher education legislation in order to ensure that higher education institutions are able to respond to global, European, national and local needs.

The Conference is expected to be the first in a series of biannual conferences devoted to the process of HE institutional reform in SEE. In order to monitor this process between two biannual events a follow-up Group will be established as a steering body.

Professor Aleksa BJELIŠ
Rector of the University of Zagreb