Speech from Elsa Fernandes Vice-Rector of University of Madeira
Funchal, 3.07.2019
Good Morning
Prof. Markus Meckl,
Prof. Mateja Sedmak,
Dear Professors and researchers,
Dear Colleagues
On behalf of the Rector of University of Madeira I would like to welcome all the participants to this seminar “migrants and Migration studies in Europe - a REMIX and Med-Hub joint event, starting now at Colégio dos Jesuítas, University of Madeira.
We are proud to have our professors and researchers involved in this project, it’s an honor to host this seminar at University of Madeira.
This thematic should be discussed because in our ever-changing world, more and more people are migrants and Europe in not an exception.
At our university, we have around 175 migrant students that is about 6.5 % of the student body. In addition to these students that spend at least two years at our university we approximately receive 80 European migrant students through the Erasmus program. This number is increasing on a yearly basis.
For the up and coming semester, of the next school year, we have around 80 incoming students on Erasmus mobility at the University of Madeira. We have been learning how to deal with these students but in an empirical way. As hospitable people that we are, we do our best and students appreciate our efforts. However, the results of this project will be certainly important for our university. We hope that our researchers engaged in this project can help us to better receive and include our migrant students.
I hope you all have a fruitful seminar, with a lot of new ideas emerging from discussions and informal conversations that you will have during this two days. I also hope that you can find some free time to enjoy our wonderful island.