The International Polytechnic Week brings together the world’s top universities
It has become a tradition for Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic university to host the International Polytechnic week in the end of May. Every year the event is attended by the esteemed delegations and keynote speakers who take part in different events dedicated to enhancing partnership, discussion of strategic objectives aimed at internationalization of higher education in Russia and abroad.
This year the Polytechnic Week gathered over 200 experts representing Russian and foreign science and education organizations and companies. Professionals from 35 universities located in 20 countries across the globe came visiting Polytech, among them 15 partner-universities of SPbPU. Some delegations, like those of Iran, Argentina, Australia, the Czech Republic, were the new-comers at the Week.
One of the significant moments of the Week was the plenary meeting “International Polytechnic Week – 2017”. This year the speakers of the meeting were specialists from China, Germany, France, and other countries. The welcome speech was given by Chairman of the Committee for Science and High School Mr. A.A. Matveev on behalf of the government of St. Petersburg.
The meeting was opened with a discourse on the university internationalization strategy given by Vice-Rector for International Relations Mr. D.G. Arseniev. He was followed by editor of the international Round University Ranking Mr. O. Soloviev, director of the Alexander Humboldt Foundation Mr. Steffen Mehlich, Head of Academic Mobility and Student Counseling Service M-m Carola Beckmeier, vice rector of The National University of Central Buenos Aires Dr. Marcelo Aba, academician Ni Weidou (Tsinghua University, China), and other honorable speakers.
The delegates spoke of the promising areas of the global networking and strategic partnership bringing into focus inspiring examples of success as well as issues of international education, academic mobility and doctoral studies.
Mr. Arseniev remarked that increasing international cooperation with world’s leading universities, science centers and companies, teaching and student mobility, double degree opportunities, launch of Master’s programs in English are priorities in the internationalization strategy of Polytech. He also emphasized the efforts that have been made over the last few years to help the university go global. The university’s participation in major national programs for education development has largely contributed to this goal. Among the university’s achievements is the status of an innovative university and a "National research university”, participation in the Russian Academic Excellence Project "5-100".
Many guests of the Week made their first appearance at this annual reunion. One of the executives of the Alexander Humboldt Foundation, Mr. Steffen Mehlich, expressed his satisfaction of being a part of this gathering and appreciated the breakthrough made by the university for the purpose of its internationalization.
The busy schedule of the Week included a number of important meetings, plenary session, seminars and student events. A great importance was attached to the negotiations with the representatives of the top universities of Iran, Argentina, China, Italy, Belgium and France that had their focus on the long-term cooperation opportunities, plans for the coming year, the launch of new science and education projects. Representatives of all the partner-universities took part in “Erasmus+ Day”. International seminar “Study abroad; directions, scholarships, grants” dedicated to academic mobility, stirred a great deal of interest among students of Polytech and other universities of St. Petersburg. They took a particular interest in the education fair that concluded the seminar where students were offered a wide range of education and mobility programs. Among the exhibitors were Paris institute of Science and Technology (France), Graz Technical University (Austria), Technical University of Milan (Italy), Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal), Tsinghua University (China), and others.
The most popular events of the Polytechnic Week were the seminar “The Humboldt Foundation programs for Leading Russian Universities” and the open interactive lesson “Russian is easy!” given for the benefit of foreign participants.
Still to come are the international partnership days “International cooperation: best practices of networking and strategic partnership”, XI international conference “Contemporary issues of international education”, the international seminar “Overall results of the Russian government assistance programs for universities based on the international rankings”. A variety of interactive events is scheduled to take place at the same time: fairs, festivals and business simulation games.