As the International Federation of Catholic Universities prepares to celebrate its centenary, the celebration of its many past successes should also be an opportunity to develop a transformative framework to prepare Catholic universities for the changes of the future. IFCU is a values-based federation that serves its members, who work in a wide variety of contexts and face enormous challenges. Our task is to offer responses to different communities as universities face a new world of opportunity and upheaval, and as their mission, educational model, community engagement strategies and funding structures change. Our goal is to support global cooperation, joining the voices of our members in a global commitment to sound research and values-based university education. This requires convening disciplines and different stakeholders from regions and professional sectors to create knowledge that will serve the causes of justice and human rights, support the sustainability of our common home and defend humanity.

Universities are at the heart of a new economic model that is no longer based simply on industry and commodities, but also on those who possess intellectual capital, which requires stronger links with community stakeholders. They will draw more and more efficiently on the resources at their disposal, as they need to respond flexibly to these changing needs. The fact that we will act to meet these demands through values-based education is our advantage as Catholic universities.

We are aware that our future is common or it will not be. The global tangle of environmental, economic, political, cultural and social challenges is forcing our universities to play a new role. Technological upheavals are changing the nature of work, social modes and interactions, strategies of political engagement, and the very idea of what it means to be human. In this economy, the purposes of the university (what is the university for?), the nature of its stakeholders (who serves the university?), the role of organization and strategy (how does the university produce knowledge?) and finally its relevance (how does the university create values?), are forcing federations like FIUC to assume a greater and deeper responsibility.

As a world federation, IFCU's task is necessarily to build bridges between geographies and social realities, to encourage collaboration across disciplines and modes of knowledge production, to develop spaces for dialogue between its members (institutions, researchers, students) and between them and other social actors. And it must do so in the spirit of the Gospel that informs our actions. As Pope Francis says in Evangelii Gaudium: "Universities are a privileged environment for thinking about and developing this commitment to evangelization in an interdisciplinary and integrated way."(Evangelii Gaudium, 134). To "act concretely", as he encourages us to do, means taking up the challenges where they are diagnosed. Acting concretely also means being ambitious, making the most of our worldwide influence.

A progressing Church requires progressing universities. Precisely, this means leveraging the local and the global, our local presence and a wider international network of universities, united by their identity and committed to creating impact together in a world that increasingly needs institutions that create value informed by values.

FIUC can only be truly global if it listens to, and thus defends, its many richly diverse internal voices - a voice of many voices. We are committed to developing spaces of lasting solidarity so that we can work together for a common future.