The Visit of Leibniz Delegation of the University of Hannover in SPbPU
On April 5, Leibniz delegation of the University of Hannover (LUH, Germany), which included Vice-Rector for LUH International Relations Professor Monica Sester and Director of the International Office Dr. Birgit Barden-Laufer, visited Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. The meeting was devoted to the implementation of the joint project between SPbPU and Leibniz University of Hanover – the "Strategic Partnership" Program for 2013-2016, supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). During the visit of German colleagues it was possible to summarize and discuss various ways to achieve the objectives and challenges faced by the universities in the framework of the "Strategic Partnership" Program.
During the visit, LUH representatives met SPbPU Rector A.I. Rudskoy. The heads of the universities warmly welcomed each other, emphasizing the importance of further sustainable development of cooperation between the universities. According to A.I. Rudskoy, such a dynamic and successful development of the cooperation has become largely possible due to the funding of some activities by the DAAD "Strategic Partnership" Program. The parties stressed the complexity of this cooperation, especially highlighting the active involvement of students of both universities in such joint activities as summer schools, short-term intensive education programs, collaborative video blog, and international FabLab Schools (the German colleagues took part in the opening ceremony of another such school).
At the end of the meeting A.I. Rudskoy thanked the German delegation for the visit. "We have a long-established good partnership relations with Leibniz University of Hannover and I am sure that today we’ve outlined further prospects for our cooperation, which we will try to strengthen and develop," concluded the Rector.
The next part the visit program of Monica Sester and Birgit Barden-Laufer in our university was their participation in the seminar "Development of Joint Internationalization Strategy: Indicators and Quality". The seminar participants from SPbPU were Vice-Rector for International Relations D.G. Arseniev, the representatives of international services, as well as the experts on the management of the education quality.
It should be noted that SPbPU International Relations service organizes similar seminars twice a year in order to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of the "Strategic Partnership" Program. 2016 is the final year of the implementation of this project, and for further successful development of cooperation, it was decided to develop a joint strategy of internationalization and apply to DAAD for continued funding of the project in 2017-2019.
Welcoming the guests, Vice-Rector for International Relations D.G. Arseniev said that the internationalization of all the areas of the university activities is the main thread of the program of the development of our university. "I’d like to emphasize the importance of the project "Strategic Partnership" for our universities. The program was designed for three years and involved active exchange of students and teachers, the implementation of joint educational and research projects in various areas: from nano- and laser technologies to civil engineering, information technology, management and linguistics," said the D.G. Arseniev. Summing up the results of this period, the Vice-Rector for International Relations noted significant improvement of such indicators as the number and quality of international educational programs, the level of student academic mobility, the internationalization of the teaching staff, the number of international collaborative research projects and joint publications in journals with high impact factor. "However, our main task is not only to improve the formal indicators, but also to further develop a successful and mutually beneficial cooperation with Leibniz University of Hanover," said Dmitry Germanovich.
After the seminar, the participants discussed possible joint activities and measures to increase the efficiency of cooperation programs, presented their work on the marketing of joint educational programs, and detailed the working plan to ensure their quality in accordance with Russian and European standards.
The participants agreed that one of the most important factors of effective cooperation is the involvement of young scientists in a joint program. That’s why one more point of the agenda was creation of the necessary conditions to increase the number of graduate and post-graduate students participating in joint activities. The participants discussed the questions of the development of joint postgraduate programs, double supervision and possible implementation of programs of training young scientists at partner universities.
Media Centre and International Relations Office, SPbPU