The following passage is an opening speech by Lord Weidenfeld, founder of the Europaeum and Chairman, Weidenfeld and Nicolson Publishers.
    I am very privileged and gratified to talk to you today. I think it is most appropriate to have this meeting at the Humboldt University, Berlin, because of the impulse to the creation to the European network, to the sequence of events, and that great turning point of history, which is symbolised by the fall of the Berlin wall. It was that particular impulse that started an enterprise to bring together teachers and students in, first of all, Western European Universities to offer resources to those universities which had only recently emerged in other parts of Europe. So we started the Europaeum network. Six universities joined us initially. We then approached the University of Prague to join us for the beginning of an enlargement, which would also to include universities previously behind the Iron Curtain. The group that we assembled around the Europaeum logo is by no means exclusive and we would very much like to enlarge it. The term ’variable geometry’ is very fashionable in international politics, but I think it also applies to our intentions, we want it to expand and include other universities either as full members or associates so free standing research institutes. 
    
    Thanks to the generosity of our German sponsor DaimlerChrysler, particularly the
    
    Davies Group of the organization, Dr Klaus Mangold and Dr Bensel, we are now engaging in a study of the roles of the universities in the future. We have a number of ideas regarding how to set about answering these three major questions: What is the future role of the university? If we have established what it is, how do we equip it to produce the resources and do its job and what role does it play in our society? We hope to have a number of ongoing conferences and exchanges of views on the subject thanks to the friendly and co-operation of Humboldt University. 
    
    We are now in a new era since 11 September. I think that one day we will regard that approximate decade from the fall of the wall in Berlin and the destructionof the World Trade Centre in New York. Here it is important that we play our role. In what we now see in the plateau of Central Southeast Asia, a holy alliance of barbarism, fanaticism and high tech product of the information society. The University, by having as a component an important dosage of humanism, makes all the difference between a Robespierre like revolution or a continuation of the human spirit with the new resources and tools, carefully husbanded, monitored and controlled.