Polytechnic University Develops Cooperation with the Biggest World Summer School
Development of network of partners all over the world is one of the major objectives of the International Polytechnic Summer School. Cooperation with leading universities keeps going on all the time and, as SPbPU Vice-Rector for International Relations D.G. ARSENIEV pointed out, this allows Polytechnic University to stay in course of the most recent trends, exchange best educational practices, and attract world-class specialists to joint projects.
Among the participant universities which Polytechnic University cooperates with in the sphere of summer schools, there are major universities of Spain, Italy, Austria, China, Japan, South Korea, etc., and the number of such universities keeps growing. This way, in August 2018, negotiations between the leading expert of the SPbPU Department of International Education O.G. EMELYANOVA and Director of the Utrecht Summer School Jeroen L. TORENBEEK took place at the Utrecht University (UU, the Netherland). The Utrecht Summer School (USS) is one of the best known and biggest summer schools in the world. It is held by the Utrecht University along with other higher educational institutions of the city: more than 250 educational modules in such areas of study as culture, arts, linguistics, exact and social sciences, business, economics, public health, annually attract more than 4,000 students from all over the world.
Many of the implemented USS courses have related courses with the International Polytechnic Summer School, and the parties discussed in detail the opportunities for launching joint summer modules and student exchanges within the frame of the summer schools in 2019.
Director of USS highly appraised the SPbPU experience in the field of cooperation with world's leading experts in the field of engineering and natural sciences. Only during the most recent two years, lectures and seminars for students of the International Polytechnic Summer School taught: Director of the ITU Radio Communication Bureau (BR) Francois RANSI; Advisor to the Research Commission of the Radio Communication Bureau V.V. NOZDRIN; Chief Researcher of the Pulkovo Observatory, RAS, Professor VM. MOSTEPANENKO; Director of the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Technical University of Graz, Professor Wolfgang ERNST; Director of the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineers of the Madrid Polytechnic University Professor Emilio MINGEZ TORRES; Technical Director of the Finnish Enersense Company V.F. ERMOLAEV; Director General of the OOO Gazprom Transgaz St. Petersburg G.A. Fokin, and many other experts. The possibilities for developing academic cooperation of SPbPU and the Utrecht University professors also became one of the negotiations topics.
USS Director Mr. TORENBEEK pointed out that he was very much impressed with how intensively the International Polytechnic Summer School has been developing. “To attract students to study engineering and fundamental sciences, and even more so, do that in summer, is not easy at all. This means, you must have very interesting course content and very well organized programs,” he said. In her turn, O.G. EMELYANOVA thanked the leaders of the Utrecht University for their warm welcome and noted that the experience and practices accumulated by USS specialists in the years of their work serve as an example and motivation for other summer schools.
“The negotiations with the leaders of the Utrecht Summer School went very productively. We discussed a number of important spheres of mutual interest and are ready for active cooperation. In the nearest future, we are going to reinforce our intentions by signing a memorandum of cooperation,” O.G. EMELYANOVA stressed.