Dear colleagues,
it is a great honor for me to address you as participants of 8th Conference of ORPHEUS.
Welcome to Prague.

Thanks to the tradition of our meetings this conference takes place only couple of days after the celebration
of 665th anniversary of foundation of Charles University by Czech and Roman King Charles the Fourth.

He founded our university as a source of the highest contemporary education offered to young men coming
from elsewhere. Universities accepted then courses or disciplines absolved at other schools, so nobody was
obliged to finish the studies at the “mother university”. The degrees given by the University were accepted
and recognised “around the world” = in contemporary Europe without any doubts as a confirmation of quality
of erudition or competence of their holders. There were no troubles with language of instructions because
Latin was used by all universities.

During time nearly everything changed. The universal language of intellectuals – Latin had been changed
for local languages, the free migration of students was restricted by states closing their borders and peg
down the possibility of migration of persons from country to country, universities were no more open
to everybody and also degrees lost their universal character due to the state regulations.

Rapid developments of technology and science during last three centuries have led to recognition of universal
character of knowledge and research. The science cannot be bounded by state borders or political system
as well as the research and studies are not reserved for selected nations only. The flow of information and
research activities acquired the universal character. But the education of prospective researchers proceeds
mainly under the influence of local (public or governmental) regulations. It proves the necessity of finding
the way to the commonly reputable system of education in science and bringing back to degrees given by
universities their medieval universal acceptance.

This is the main problem why ORPHEUS had been founded couple years ago. We studied the contemporary
system of education in Biomedicine and Health sciences in Europe and the ways and means of formulation
of its commonly acceptable model as an element of broadly acknowledged degree of PhD in previous
conferences. Now we are turning our attention to the problems of doctoral studies from global point of view.

The programme of the conference contains a number of contributions of influential international organisations
as well as reports on implementation of results of former conferences to the educational system of different
schools. All of them can contribute to the solution of our main task – how to improve and harmonise the system
of education of our students to achieve primarily comparable level of their knowledge and competencies and
secondary the common acceptability of their degrees.

Without your active contribution we cannot fulfill this task. I wish to all of you a good stay in Prague and a lot
of success in your activities. Quod Bonum, Faustum, Felix, Fortunatumque Eveniat.

Associate Professor Petr Hach, MD, PhD
Chair of the Organising Committee