Onorevoli Ministru Dr Clifton Grima, onorevoli sur Justin Schembri, shadow minister għall-edukazzjoni, uffiċjali tal-KSU, kollegi letturi u professuri, Reġistratur Akkademiku u staff amministrattiv ieħor tal-Università, merħba.
Għeżież studenti u speċjalment intom il-freshers tal-2025, merħba lilkom ukoll u grazzi talli għażiltu li tiġu tistudjaw magħna f’din l-Università; istituzzjoni li ilha toffri edukazzjoni, tama u ċans ta’ ħajja aħjar lill-eluf ta’ Maltin għal iktar minn 400 sena. Għalija bħala Rettur, dan huwa mument intens għaliex din hi l-aħħar darba li minn fuq dan il-podium se nkun qed ngħaddi messaġġ lilkom fil-mument li qegħdin tibdew sena ġdida f’din l-akkademja. Nistqarr li l-ħamsa u ħamsin sena li ħdimt ma’ żgħażagħ u għal żgħażagħ bħalkom matul il-karriera tiegħi, bħala għalliem kif ukoll, bħala amministratur f’din l-Università, tawni sodisfazzjon tremend u enerġija speċjali għaliex stajt nara b’għajnejja kif edukazzjoni serja u ta’ kwalita’, tbiddel in-nies u tibnihom f’individwi speċjali. Individwi li għenu bis-sħiħ u kruċjalment biex, minkejja d-diffikultajiet u l-imperfezzjonijiet tagħna bħala poplu, pajjiżna llum hu ġawhra fil-Mediterran.
Bħas-soltu, se nuża t-tieni lingwa tagħna għall-benefiċċju ta’ sħabna studenti u staff akkademiku li jaħdmu magħna u ma jifhmux il-Malti.
Dear fellow academics who are still struggling with the Maltese language. And dear international students, especially the freshers of 2025, good morning and welcome to Malta and its great University! We’re so glad you’ve chosen to study with us, here in this small, indeed tiny, country in the middle of the Middle Sea. Despite its size, this country is blessed with a University having a history spanning over 400 years and one which shared the ups and downs of the people of these Islands and survived to become one of the more important universities in our region and indeed globally, today ranked in the top 3% of world universities. May you make of your personal experience with us a great success full of memorable and exciting moments so you can eventually go back to your home and family with Malta and its University firmly impressed in your minds and hearts.
Before I decided on the message to deliver for this year, I went over my speeches of the past 9 years, wrote two-sentence summaries of each and then looked to see what themes I had dealt with and, if any were repeated, which. The result was interesting and I will reprise here the commoner themes for the benefit of the freshers of 2025.
I emphasized most frequently the importance of communication skills, especially the ability to write properly in English and the need to read, read and read some more and beyond your lecture notes.
The value and importance of performing research was another theme emphasized. The practice and mindset of challenging the known rather than accepting it unhesitatingly and the skill of testing alternative hypotheses places university education apart from other types. Universities are places where the accepted norms are constantly called into question intellectually or by physical experimentation in search of a more reliable truth. Research involves hard work and dedication. All work at the University must be guided by the highest ethical standards, including that involved in the writing of documents such as research papers but also assignments, term papers, dissertations etc which is why I returned repeatedly to the subject of plagiarism, that persistent curse of higher education.
The newest challenge, at all universities including ours, is Generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT) which, while being a fantastic tool for learning and research, promises to make nonsense of open book or take home written assignments as means for assessment. I don’t think we can naively assume that students are going to use these tools always correctly and ethically and we, academics, have to learn to devise means to address this, as yet unsolved serious problem.
Other important messages reflected on the related themes of climate change and sustainability and the need for Universities to teach and research areas pertaining to sustainable living to ensure a liveable future for us, our children and the planet itself.
And this year, I wish to dwell on the future that beckons given that you’re here studying at University to be helped to live it usefully and successfully. Why should you dedicate time, effort and hardship, studying for long hours at a time when you’re brimming with life and energy and a million distractions luring you away from university studies, if not because you believe a degree is well worth your while and is the best investment in yourselves that you can make?
My message this year is based on the same theme as that chosen by the Council of Europe for 2025, namely, “Shaping a Just, Peaceful, and Sustainable Future”. I want to argue that individuals endowed with the blessing of a higher education experience are best equipped, thanks to their training, with the skills and competences that can help society in this hour of need.
Because this is truly a challenging time for all of us.
The state of the world currently isn’t the most promising. The social climate around us, global politics and the prospects for a just and peaceful world are unfortunately not optimal. Indeed a just and peaceful world has never looked so dismally distant. The world is also not taking its environmental difficulties seriously enough and these difficulties compound and exacerbate other problems countries and societies are facing.
As the anxieties evoked by the recent global pandemic have receded, new troubles continue to gather like dark clouds on the horizon: wars between nations inflicting destruction, carnage and cruelty to children and civilians not wearing any uniforms (the Palestinian tragedy comes to mind); entire countries populated by large communities at the risk of dying from preventable diseases or famine; others where girls and women are treated like second class citizens. Climate collapse, environmental disasters on a scale never witnessed before and affecting both communities in the third world but also others in the first.
There is evidence that especially among younger generations, levels of anxiety and hopelessness are rising which explains why people are losing interest in elections; moreover public protests on issues such as economic justice, climate change and civil rights are becoming more frequent . There is a growing distrust in traditional institutions and disillusion with governments. And this may lead to feelings of powerlessness especially among the young, including our highly motivated and intelligent students in universities worldwide who should really be the main agents of positive change needed to correct the dysfunctions blemishing the future, their future.
The physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (and I trust many of you have watched the movie, winner of 7 Oscars) was responsible for burdening the world with the first atomic weapon, which devastated two Japanese cities when that country was already practically on its knees ready to end the Second World War. Shortly thereafter, in 1945, together with other scientists including Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer became a campaigner against the use of atomic weapons and launched the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to sensitize the world against the perils of that technology. Two years later, the Bulletin published the Doomsday Clock using the imagery of midnight as the moment of nuclear apocalypse and began a yearly countdown to zero to convey the threats to humanity and the planet from nuclear weaponry. The Clock is still universally recognized as a useful, if symbolic, indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe and today it considers besides the nuclear risk, that from climate change, biological threats and risks from disruptive technologies.
In 1947, the Clock read 7 minutes from midnight. In 1991, it receded to read 17 minutes from midnight, reflecting the collapse of the Soviet Union and the signing of Strategic Arms Reduction treaties which at the time promised to make the world a safer place. In 2025, the Clock stands at 89 seconds from midnight, the closest it has been since 1947.
So, this is not good and the reasons for it are multifaceted: nuclear risk continued to worsen as nuclear countries modernized and expanded their arsenals; the Russian war against Ukraine is of course an obvious major concern coupled with Russia’s withdrawal from treaties intended to keep nuclear conflict at bay. Iran and North Korea present additional risks but even the United States, who was always relied upon as a voice for nuclear moderation, “is now a full partner in a worldwide nuclear arms race”. I am citing verbatim from said Report for 2025.
Climate indicators continued along the trend exhibited in the previous year. Greenhouse gas emissions increased notwithstanding promises by countries to curb them, a situation which signals worse calamities to come. Although the clean energy transition is moving forward apace, it does so facing strong headwinds from greedy and selfish interests vested in the fossil fuel business.
Threats from emerging infectious diseases, proliferation of high-risk research laboratories including those developing offensive biological weapons and the combination of AI with biological reseach, which governments appear unwilling to ban for fear of losing out on some advantageous outcomes, combine to elevate the biological risk to the planet.
Disruptive technologies, such as the large language models (e.g. ChatGPT-4) promise to continue to become more sophisticated and powerful and therefore capable of mischief. For the moment, the existential risks to humanity by AI remain speculative but only time will tell if this risk becomes more real and concerning. Already, AI is being incorporated in conventional weapons systems so far excluding nuclear devices. But for how long? The ability of AI to interfere with information dissemination and communication systems has already been demonstrated. Cyberattacks are almost becoming routine occurrences: only a week ago, mayhem and havoc descended on three major airports in Europe as a result of these activities but luckily with no casualties.
So, in light of all this doom and gloom, why should freshers of 2025 face the future with courage and hope? It is precisely because whenever humanity faced serious difficulties, it always proved itself resilient and managed to make progress through intelligence, wisdom and hard work. Education is key to such progress and it empowers young people to be ready and prepared to take on the challenges of the day, be they in dealing with climate mitigation measures or perhaps creating AI tools to deal with conflict resolution.
Many of the greatest social, scientific and other breakthroughs were led by young people. Thus, Alan Turing laid the foundations of modern computing and played a critical role in breaking the Enigma code during World War II. He was in his 20’s. Isaac Newton began developing the physics of optics, the laws of motion and the new mathematics he invented (the calculus) also while in his 20s; Michelangelo was 26 when he began work on his David. Martin Luther King Jr was 26 when he led the Montgomery Bus boycott that sparked a wave of civil rights movement in the USA. Malala Yousafzai advocated for girls’ education as a teenager, narrowly survived an assassination attempt, to become the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate at 17.
You students today have access to more information and more technology than any of the generations that came before you: hence the potential for success in your original ideas, concepts and solutions is much greater.
Moreover, let me also say that while the news focus their reports on wars, civil strife, hunger, scandals and other negativities, there are numerous individuals, communities and indeed states that are collaborating and working together to find solutions to the problems of societies and those of the planet’s environment. The 30,000+ universities of the world, in particular, host hundreds of thousands, millions even, of researchers and academics joined in their efforts at finding solutions to the world’s problems and this number doesn’t take into account their students, especially the postgraduates. The work of this army of individuals goes largely unreported and rarely makes ‘news’. Universities are beacons of hope for our planet and the smart, enlightened students streaming out of them every year to find their places in society act as catalysts to keep progress on the move. Which is why I find immensely preoccupying the senseless attack on universities in the free world aimed at crippling their research effort; and I find unbelieveable the rubbishing of solid, cast iron science relating to the causes of climate change. How can solutions to the sustainability challenges of the planet be found, including those pertaining to the evolving climate collapse, if the basic premises that explain the causes are rejected simply because they represent an uncomfortable truth?
The future is fraught with difficulties and risks but that is why your presence in society as educated, enlightened and ethical individuals will be so important, indeed crucial. Your ideas, your intelligence, your courage and your compassion matter. These years at university are not just preparation for a career but serve to provide you with an essential toolkit to help you turn the world into a more just, sustainable and peaceful place in which you and your loved ones can truly and safely flourish.
Before I close, and on your behalf, dear students, I wish to sincerely thank the academics and support staffs of this University, L-Università ta’ Malta. They are the foundation of everything that happens at this University. Through their teaching, research, service, and dedication, they exemplify excellence and talent to help provide you students with the guidance and support you need to blossom and thrive. May academic 2025-26 be a good year for all.