Greetings Message
Prof. Edmond H. Fischer
President World Cultural Council

Academic Hall, University of Liege
Liege, Belgium

Esteemed Rector, colleagues and friends:

It is truly a great honour for the World Cultural Council to have been received by the University of Liege for this ceremony. I would like to express all our gratitude for your hospitality. I am well aware of the historical dimensions of your university, which was founded over 500 years ago at the same time as your college. I was therefore delighted to be invited to the award ceremony but am unfortunately unable to attend. I would nonetheless like to thank you again for hosting this event.

The World Cultural Council was founded 30 years ago by José Rafael Estrada, with the support of 124 eminent scientists along with major figures from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and America. Twenty years before that, in the nineteen sixties, Maestro Estrada had already set up a large number of Human Development Institutes in different countries in Latin America. In 2001, with the turn of the millennium, all these organizations, along with several others, such as the World Peace Organization and Albert Einstein University in Mexico City, were brought together under the umbrella of the Global Foundation. This foundation was created with the sole purpose of safeguarding freedom of expression, knowledge and culture, irrespective of ideology, belief or religion. Its one objective was to foster a culture of peace and fraternity. Maestro Estrada, José Rafael Estrada, presided over the World Cultural Council throughout those 20 years and subsequently devoted much of his time, efforts and personal resources to support its activities, so we have a huge debt of gratitude towards him, not to mention enormous respect and admiration.

The World Cultural Council was established with the specific aim of paying tribute to men and women from the worlds of science, art and education, by awarding them the Albert Einstein World Award of Science every year and, on alternate years, the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts and the José Vasconcelos World Award of Education. So today we celebrate these achievements, the great work and the triumphs of these two outstanding figures: Sir John Houghton, with the Albert Einstein Award of Science, for his noteworthy developments in the field of climate change and the environment, and Marcell Jankovics, with the Leonardo da Vinci Award of Arts, for his wonderful drawings, and his short and animated films.

As I said before, it would have been an enormous pleasure for me to be with you to congratulate the laureates in person. Through this recording, this machine, I can, at least, send across the distance, from Seattle in the United States, all my warmest wishes and all my admiration.

Cheers, Sir John!
Cheers, Marcell!