Dear employees and students! As the leap year 2024 is coming to an end, it seems that globally we do not have many reference points for looking optimistically into the future, in particular due to the many current war zones around the world.

Confusing are also the mixed reactions to the results of the recent climate conference and the findings of the EU’s programme Copernicus for climate change monitoring showing that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and that climate action is more urgent than ever.

At the University of Maribor, we also had to deal with several challenges in the past year, but at the same time demonstrated dedication and commitment to our academic community which enabled us to successfully overcome all challenges and come out of them more united and stronger.

We are starting to see the first results of the successful implementation of RRP pilot projects with which we want to achieve curricular renewal and changes for a green, resilient, sustainable and digitally connected university. A few days ago, the University of Maribor received the Apple of Quality 2024 in the category of tertiary education for its excellent international cooperation practice in the Erasmus+ programme. The quality of our teaching and research work is growing, and so is the number of our students. In the academic year 2024/2025, we achieved a 4.1% annual growth in the number of students and thus exceeded the total number of 15,000 students in all study programmes. With the activities that have already been carried out, we are successfully paving the way for ensuring adequate new spatial capacities of the faculties which we will begin to realize already in the coming year 2025 and beyond. And we could go on and on.

We are entering the jubilee year 2025, in which we will joyfully celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the University of Maribor which, during this time, has made remarkable progress and become a recognised and important institution of knowledge in the wider environment. This inspires us with optimism and determination to continue to successfully build our academic community based on open-mindedness and the constant strengthening of academic values, which we want to transfer in the environment and thus oppose the negative social influences brought about by today’s times.

I would like to thank each and every one of you for your dedicated and responsible work within the scope of your regular duties, for your efforts to constantly acquire new knowledge as well as to find innovative solutions with the aim of ensuring prosperity for all. Thank you also for all the efforts that have been made to enable us to resolve our challenges through dialogue and mutual acceptance.

This ensures that our optimism about life and our confidence in the future will continue to grow.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2025!

Prof. dr. Zdravko Kačič, Rector of the University of Maribor