The UOC is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The project, which a decade ago was just a valiant and innovative adventure, regarded by some as visionary, has come of age. And it has come of age accompanied by success. In a very short space of time, the UOC has become an international benchmark for higher education through the use of new technology. This says a great deal about the quality and the seriousness of its work, which is backed up by the university's spectacular growth figures. In ten years, the UOC has leapt from 200 enrolled students to almost 32,000 this academic year. And from two approved degrees in the first year there are now seventeen, besides a very broad range of continued education, with more than 160 post-graduate courses.

As a DURSI counsellor and now chairman of the UOC Board of Trustees, I would like to congratulate those who have made this university an established hallmark of prestige and to encourage them to maintain the same enterprising spirit in the future which has enabled them to get to where they are today. Without doubt, the UOC has been consummately skilful at interpreting and adapting itself to the new technological age. As Professor Martin Carnoy said in his opening lecture, the UOC has known how to overcome successfully one of the main challenges facing online teaching: knowing how to create an intensive student-teacher relationship.

I would not like to finish without highlighting another area in which the UOC has begun to bear fruit: research. This, together with the quality of the teaching and the intensive use of ICTs, makes the UOC a leading institution which responds to twenty-first century needs. Congratulations and very best wishes for the 2004-05 academic year!

Carles Solà i Ferrando
Minister for Universities, Research and the Information Society
President of the Patronat (Board of Trustees) of the Foundation for the Open University of Catalonia