About EMUNI by Prof. Joseph Mifsud, President 

»EMUNI is one of the most important projects within the context of the Union for the Mediterranean. What we have been trying to do within EMUNI is to bring together universities, research institutions, research centres, centres of excellence to work together in the development of new projects, bridging the South and the North, the North and the South, the East and the West of the Mediterranean. In these times of change I would say that EMUNI is a project which tries to build just-in-time projects and just-in-time education. We have been concentrating on the six priority areas as established by the Paris Summit of 2008. And we have also worked on other areas which I feel are extremely important in the development of the EMUNI concept, such as good governance, the idea of training, human capacity building, specifically tied to municipalities, regions and also national governments and national institutions.

Our priorities have ranged from maritime and land highways to alternative energies, from civil protection to higher education and research. But we have also focused on such important areas like the development of Mediterranean business, especially small and medium enterprise and cottage industries. We have developed professional development schools, summer schools, research seminars, European projects, intensive programmes, where we bring together young people, young graduates from all over, to work together and to speak together the same language, the language of research, the language of excellence. This is the quality education that we are trying to push forward at EMUNI. We need the support and we have been working closely with what we call EMUNI partners. EMUNI partners share with us the road, the trip of intercultural dialogue, not just by words or by speaking about intercultural dialogue; we actually do things, focusing specifically on themes and thematic approaches.

This would be the work of EMUNI in the future and specifically linking it to the European agenda and to the agenda of countries coming from the South and which are on the neighbourhood of the European Union. This is not just a European institution, we are a Euro-Mediterranean institution, and the focus, the scholars, the professors, the academics or, as we call them, the experts, come from all walks of life within the framework, within the Mediterranean basin. I hope, sincerely hope that EMUNI could be one instrument of change for the region.«