Welcome Speech of the Rector

As the rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), I would like to welcome you to the web page of this public institution of higher learning. Maintaining an academic tradition of more than 500 years, the USC aims to provide students with high-quality learning and research. These high standards also extend to its different services as well as to its social and environmental needs. Organised into two campus, one located in Lugo and the other in Compostela, the USC ranges over the whole five areas of knowledge: Experimental Science, Health Science, Social and Legal Science, Technical Science and Humanities. Moreover, the USC is an institution that shows an intense research activity, developed by its 72 departments, 18 research institutes and by more than 1600 researchers, all of them coordinated by the Innovation and Technological Transfer Centre (CITT).

The history of the USC constitutes a legacy we are proud of, represented in its architectural, art and bibliographical heritage, which is still alive as nowadays continues to do great service to our society.

From Galicia, our university is projected to the European technological and scientific development. Thus, its main aim is to play a relevant role in the framework of European Higher Learning Space, which is made in agreement with the Bologna Declaration, as well as to achieve closer bonds with the Latin American University community. In relation to this, it is worth mentioning that during the 2004 academic year, our university is organizing activities related to the programme The Ways of the USC in America, the already held Iberoamerican Conference of Rectors and Responsibles of International Relationships being an outstanding example of it, that resulted in the Declaration of Compostela, signed by more than 200 Iberoamerican Universities.

The USC is directly committed to the quality of learning, research and services, as stated in its Strategic Plan, by means of which it aims to project itself to the future in order to transform its present and to solve the different demands of society. The efforts made in these last years justify the existence of a Vice-rectorship of Quality and Strategic Plannig which allows for the promotion of a higher quality quota in the different fields and activities of the USC. However, it is the joint work done in our centres, departments, institutes of research and services what ultimately guarantees our progress in quality matters.

We must be aware that a new model of university is being created with the intention of reflecting the "post-industrial" world. At the USC, this model implies the preservation of the characteristic features that define our university as an educative institution committed to the transmission both of knowledge and of the innovative results that emerge from research, thus helping to surmount those results left behind by the social, cultural, economic and technological transformations. In this way, the USC aims to go on being a model for our society that contributes to a sustainable development. In line with this, this web soon became a promotor of education, research and services. Besides this, it is an excellent letter of introduction to the USC, showing its identity, its work and its projects. The different pages of this website will show you an evolving university that does not forget the richness of its history, profits from its five-century heritage, and tries to go further so as to consolidate itself as a prestigious university within the current dynamic world. In essence, our University puts its knowledge and leadership in the service of the demands of our society.