Partner universities of Kalashnikov ISTU: Intention to work together

The working visit of Prof. Valery Grakhov, Rector of Kalashnikov ISTU and Dr. Aleksandr Gubert, Senior Vice-Rector of Kalashnikov ISTU to German and Czech universities in the period February 11-18 was very eventful and fruitful. The aim of the visit was to renew the contacts and agreements of cooperation, as only in discussion we can realize if we are going in the right direction and if we are ready to go on working together.

As you know, Kalashnikov ISTU has been cooperating with Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and Brno University of Technology (Czech Republic) for many years already.

— The first visit was to Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences — to Suderburg where the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering is located — comments Prof. Grakhov. — It is the faculty with which we are implementing the double degree program in water preparation, water supply and drainage. The idea of the visit was to renew the agreement. We got acquainted with the faculty, discussed the cooperation issues with the President of Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Dean of the faculty and Head of department in water supply and water preparation. The Ostfalia administration confirmed the intention to proceed with cooperation in the double degree program. The only thing to be done – to adjust the study program due to the changes in our standards and certain requirements from their side.

Since our partners conduct the educational process in German, we confirmed our intention to actively develop teaching German as the second foreign language. And when our German colleagues found out that we have study programs taught in English, they suggested teaching the same programs in German as well. We agreed that in spring we’ll send people from the departments in civil engineering to Germany to work on launching such programs in German. The cooperation agreement has been signed and working contacts are scheduled for this spring already: we are awaiting the guests from Suderburg at our international conference on education quality in April where we’ll be able to discuss the implementation of this program in civil engineering.

— Actually, such positive experience can be spread for other faculties of Ostfalia, — continues Dr. Gubert. — There are about 30,000 students in four campuses of this university. Now we are waiting for the complete list of study programs from our partners to define what are closer to us. The most important is the desire to work together and our German partners are ready to participate in academic mobility programs.

Our delegation also visited two Czech universities. The first was Moravian Business College Olomouc, with which a number of leading Russian universities have partner relations.

This university specializes in economics, management and information systems, and is very much interested in developing academic mobility. During the discussions it was agreed that starting from the next year the partners will participate in each other’s conferences. The Institute of Digital Economy of Kalashnikov ISTU needs to be developing as well, so this will be their common goal.

Our delegates had a chance to get closer acquainted with the university, see its progress and expressed the intention to cooperate further that was proved by signing the renewed cooperation agreement between our universities.

The meeting of our delegation with the Rector and Vice-Rector of Brno University of Technology was also fruitful: both of us are interested in active cooperation.

— Kalashnikov ISTU has traditionally sent its PhD students to Brno, as the mutual exchange always helps achieving certain results, — goes on Aleksandr Gubert. — And European Union supports academic mobility from universities of different countries, both inside and outside Europe. This is an inter-state program, and the more universities from different countries are involved, the more quotas you can get. Why not to extend our opportunities, i.e. to implement not a bilateral but a quadruple university program?

We already have the ideas about the first steps in the implementation of such mutually beneficial project, at the same time, we have a number of issues to be settled. In such type of activity, as international cooperation, there are always many objective and subjective problems, but our university definitely chooses it as one of the priorities.

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Last Updated on Friday, 22 February 2019 10:51