During its 18 years the Programme, now with close to 220 participating universities and other institutes of higher learning, has grown to be one of the largest university networks worldwide and much has been achieved in education, research and applied projects. Under the auspices of the Programme, a number of university courses, especially on the topic of environmental science, regional studies and sustainability, have been produced. Thousands of teachers and students have met during conferences, teachers’ training programmes, summer courses and other activities, and more than 100,000 students have studied within the Programme since its start. Presently close to 10,000 students register in the Programme yearly at more than 100 universities.

In October 2006 a first Rectors conference was convened at Uppsala University. Some 90 universities were represented, whereof 45 by their rectors. The Rectors conference held in 2006 attracted in total 160 participants.

At the 2006 meeting a formal foundation of the cooperation was established on the basis of inter-university contracts between Uppsala University, as the coordinator and initiator of the Programme, and the participating universities. Today more then 70 universities have signed such a contract. Further, a final declaration was signed to outline the directions of continued cooperation. A description of the first Baltic University Programme Rectors conference is available at www.balticuniv.uu.se/BalticRectors.

The main aim of the conference will be the elaboration of a new formula of cooperation between universities in the network to organizing seminars, conferences and other events for education and research for sustainable development, as well as to exchange students, PhD students and staff.