Ladies and Gentlemen,
before we enter the upcoming Christmas Holidays and New Year, aside from wishing you all the best, I would also like to share a few reflections.
First of all, thank you for your on-site presence at the University. I look at the students, doctoral students, and employees filling the university campuses with great joy. We are finally able to recreate the University of Silesia in the form set out in the statute adopted by our Senate on 28 May 2019.
Only recently, we regained the ability to substantively evaluate the adopted solutions, confirm their merits or consider needed adjustments. Let’s not hesitate to discuss them and propose improvements — guided by our responsibility towards students, so they can find here the education they need to work and live in the modern world, and by proper management and care, so the public funds allocated towards research bring the best possible results.
Regardless of the final discipline evaluation results, we can already see that they are exceptional. I would like to thank Academics and Artists, who through their hard work and achievements have ensured that their disciplines will boast great evaluation results. We are justified in feeling a sense of pride in carrying out the University’s fundamental mission very well.
Thank you, for having the future of education at the University of Silesia in your hearts and for approaching — with passion and enthusiasm — the incredibly difficult and ambitious task of developing a new concept of studies. We are intending to work out an answer to a complex civilisational challenge, which is the new status of knowledge after the technological revolution of the Internet and the problems facing every public higher education institution in Poland — disproportions in the number of students in specific degree programmes, attracting the best candidates to studies, and ensuring that students properly experience the adventure of education and the benefits associated with it, while making sure that our graduates will enter the labour market with the best possible skills to handle its challenges; creating the proper working conditions for academics, so the process of education can be both effective and satisfying. The upcoming year will be a time to meet with faculty communities and discuss this project and the prospects for its implementation.
Thank you to all employees who extend their support to scientists, academics, students, and doctoral students. Without you, the University would not exist. I am extremely impressed with your dedication, reliability, and readiness to face the new and unique challenges we have faced in the past few years.
The uniqueness of the University, as a community and an institution, has made itself known again and again in recent, extremely difficult years.
We gave ourselves and others a shoulder to lean on during the epidemic, maintaining continuity of education, organising vaccinations and all possible help for the epidemic victims among us and our loved ones.
Against the background of many institutional crises, our University can be a shining example of dedication and social sensitivity, standing guard over civil liberties, freedom of speech, and equality of all community members.
We have provided various kinds of aid to the victims of war in Ukraine, and we will still continue to help over 400 people who found shelter in our dormitories and hotels. In addition, we have obtained large external funds for the development of cooperation with the academic community of the war-torn University in Mariupol.
Thanks to careful planning and sensible energy purchase agreements, the University operates and will continue to operate without significant changes impacting the quality of education and the continuity of scientific research.
The position of the University of Silesia in its immediate surroundings, regionally, nationally, and in Europe is growing. Together with six other public universities based in Katowice, we have obtained the title of the European City of Science for Katowice. We are the leader of the City of Science Consortium. We are also becoming a strong partner of the European Commission in subsequent scientific and educational initiatives in our region. In 2024, our University will chair the European University Transform4Europe established and developed with partners from Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, and Slovenia.
The involvement, scientific and educational importance, along with the commitment of our University to the region have resulted in our investment projects being recognised as priorities in the development of the Silesian Voivodeship. In the beginning of December, the European Commission accepted the financing of projects submitted by the authorities of the Silesian Voivodeship, including a few USil projects: building the Silesian Interdisciplinary Chemistry Centre, building the Centre for Biotechnology and Biodiversity, modernisation of the Cieszyn Campus (SPIN-ART — Art and Culture Education Centre). The total co-financing amount of those investments equals nearly PLN 350 million.
The University of Silesia, concerned about the Katowice Campus, has initiated conceptual work led by the City of Katowice on a Green Science Zone project that would transform the stretch of river between the Katowice Market Square and the University of Economics into an area for recreation and science communication. I hope that in a few years the University and the city will receive a unique and attractive public space, which will become the centre of the City of Science.
The aforementioned activities and projects alone show what an intense and increasingly effective conversation the University is having with the community; a conversation about the useful and creative impact of learning and education on our lives and the world in which we live them. The 55,000 participants in the recently concluded 6th Silesian Science Festival is strong evidence of the public interest in this conversation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to wish you all the best in the coming Holidays and New Year.
May it be a time of health and prosperity for you, and may it bring an end to war for our Neighbours and the world.
May the University, as a place to work and study and as a community we form together, give you a sense of solidarity, warmth, and agency over our shared future.
For I believe that when we succumb to helplessness, then creating and sharing knowledge; researching and understanding the reality and the ability to influence it gives us strength, motivates us to take action, and fills our lives with meaning and hope.
Ryszard Koziołek
Rector of the University of Silesia
