We have two reasons to be especially happy as we start this academic year 2024/2025. Firstly, we'll be celebrating 30 years of the UOC, and in this time more than 120,000 people – people who saw their education as a way to transform their lives individually and collectively – have graduated from the university.

Secondly, I'm delighted to tell you about how the first European open university is getting under way. OpenEU, led by the UOC, is an alliance of 14 European universities and 13 academic, business, rural, municipal and civil society associations from across Europe. It represents a unique opportunity to widen the scope and increase the impact of European open and distance universities, and I'm positive that it can lead us to an updated version of the European Higher Education Area that will provide the backbone for lifelong learning in Europe.

Solutions for rigorous and high-quality lifelong learning have been at the heart of the UOC's public mandate since its founding. This is our hallmark. Over the course of this year, we'll be rolling out new credential pathways (with microcredentials and macrocredentials), tools to help you enhance your career prospects and resources to build your digital identity and enhance your competitiveness.

All these actions stem from our firm commitment to evolving our educational model, to strengthening assessment of and for learning, and to improving the support we provide our students.

Whether this is your first academic year or you've been with us for some time now, I want to thank you for placing your trust in us. Likewise, I'd encourage you to help strengthen our community by taking part actively or through your elected representatives in the faculty committees, the Student Council and the University Council, bodies that represent our university community and ensure its voice is heard. 

I welcome you to this new academic year with the wish that this be the first of many improbable (but not impossible!) singular occurrences that help you reach your goals – goals that you might not even dare imagine possible. 

Welcome, everyone! All the best for the new academic year!

Àngels Fitó
Rector of the UOC