SPbPU Madrid Information Center: Pandemic News Digest

The coronavirus pandemic has become a test of strength for representation offices of Polytechnic University abroad. Both the SPbPU Representative Office in Shanghai and the Information Center of our university in Madrid coped with difficulties with dignity. We recently talked about how during the quarantine period was working the team of the Shanghai office. No less intensive was the activity of the SPbPU Information Center, which has been operating since 2019 on the basis of the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineers of Technical University of Madrid (UPM) - a strategic partner of St. Petersburg University. This and not only is in the news digest.

New legal arrangements and partnership agreements

In May 2020, SPbPU and the University of Cadiz entered into an agreement on joint international scientific management of a postgraduate dissertation. Postgraduate student of Polytechnic University Alexander LANKO writes a paper on the subject of construction equipment and technologies. As a result of the signed agreement between universities, he will become the first postgraduate student under the joint scientific guidance of professors from SPbPU and the University of Cadiz. Also in May, agreements were reached on the joint management of postgraduate students on the subject of ion engines between the IPN&T, SPbPU and the Higher School of Aeronautics, UPM. Already in June 2020, Polytechnic University and the University of Cadiz agreed on a second agreement on joint scientific management of the dissertation in the humanities: postgraduate student of the University of Cadiz, Mario ROSANO, writes a work on political science and anthropology.

At the moment, an agreement with the Technical University of Madrid on the operational activities of the SPbPU Information Center in Madrid on the basis of the UPM is at the final stage of approval. Due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the actual signing of the contract had to be postponed from March 2020 to summer. In July, some of the UPM units will partially return to working from the office.

From offline events to the online mode

In the first half of 2020, Polytechnic University, together with its Ibero-American partners, planned to hold a big number of joint events. Unfortunately, not all of them could get through in the usual way for example, the start of a joint student project marathon, a series of open lectures and seminars on energy and materials science, working visits of representatives of companies and universities had to be postponed to a later date.

However, in February Polytechnic University took part in Russia-Cuba meeting of rectors and in the 12th Congress of Higher Education, which took place in Havana (Cuba) in the form of live communication, and in March a series of negotiations and working meetings were held with representatives of the University of Porto and the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. As a result, the parties agreed to conclude a cooperation agreement with the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, to conduct joint events in the field of applied mathematics and mechanics, as well as in the area of service and tourism. The cooperation agreement is currently at the stage of signing.

Since April, joint events have been held online: in this format, took place the virtual meeting of representatives of the Higher School of Service and Trade of SPbPU and the Higher School of Tourism and Hospitality of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. In the same month, employees of the Higher School of International Educational Programs of SPbPU held events on the Russian language and culture for students of the University of Granada. And in May, SPbPU took an active part in online events dedicated to the 5th anniversary of the Russian Center at the University of Granada.

Plans for the near future

Employees of the SPbPU International Offices and partner universities of Ibero-America are in constant contact and make plans for the near future. In November, holding of the 2nd Russian-Spanish Week of Language and Culture was agreed upon in partnership with the University of Cadiz. This time, the UPM and the Higher School of Economics (Moscow) will also join organizing and conducting the Week. A series of events will be held online. In addition, several scientific articles are being prepared for publication together with scientists of the Technical University of Madrid.

And, of course, grandiose plans are being contrived on the occasion of the International Student Project Marathon: the Federal University of Technology - Paraná (Brazil) has joined the project, with which teams and research areas have already been identified: these are biomedicine and computer modeling in agriculture. Active negotiations are being held with the University of Cadiz: two areas of research for participants have already been agreed upon: the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language to Spanish students and the methodology and analytics of Russian-Spanish translation.

Prepared by the SPbPU International Office