ANCIENT UNIVERSITIES ROUTE

The final meeting of the Council of Europe’s project on the heritage of European Universities, called ‘Ancient Universities Route’, was held in Kraków on 23-24 October 2000. It was a part of the ‘Europe, a common heritage’ Campaign and one of the five transnational projects within the Campaign supported by the European Union. Previous meetings were held in Alcalá, Montpellier and Bologna.

The meeting in Kraków gathered rectors and other representatives of historical European universities. There was also the participation of the Chairs of the Council of Europe’s Committees on Cultural Heritage and Higher Education and Research, representative of the European Commission and the CRE. Kraków was chosen because of its position and tradition of the Jagiellonian University as one of the oldest in Europe. The papers and discussion were devoted to the idea of Europe through universities: Europe as a heritage of European Universities yesterday, today and tomorrow. The theme was presented on the examples of Krakow, of Tartu and Santiago de Compostela. European training programmes and network of ‘heritage universities’ were also included in the discussion.