Rectors of Russian and Spanish universities compared notes
The Gaidar Forum has become a platform for starting new partnerships of RANEPA with leading universities of Spain. On the final day of the Forum, a meeting was held with the participation of the Rectors of RANEPA, MISIS, Tomsk State University, of Vice-Rector of the Russian Foreign Trade Academy, Vice-Rector of the University of Oviedo (Spain), Vice-Rector of the Rovira i Virgili University, and other experts in the field of education and Spanish-Russian relations.
The meeting was moderated by Igor Bartsits, Director of the Institute of Public Administration and Civil Service, RANEPA, and Aurelio Llanes Villanueva, Education Attaché of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain in Moscow. Igor Bartsits expressed gratitude to colleagues who came to Moscow to discuss new programs. He admitted that the need of signing a multilateral alliance was long-simmering. Universities are interested in reaching a new level of cooperation, and the wide branch network of RANEPA will bring international projects to tens of thousands of students across the country.
Maxim Nazarov, Vice-Rector of RANEPA, outlined that the main task the alliance should perform is to allow students of eight partner universities to learn from the best practices of everyone, but according to their own trajectory. According to the Vice-Rector, such training will make graduates as competitive and unique as possible on the labor market.
Eduard Galazhinsky, Rector of Tomsk State University, highlighted two important aspects that are in need to be worked on: cooperation and development of science schools. “We need to understand what interesting and valuable projects each university has. For example, our University has a unique infrastructure for monitoring climate change. Each university has its own advantages. Let’s share this information and think about how this can all be combined for better results,” the speaker suggested.
Vadim Petrov, Vice-Rector of the National Technological Research University MISIS, came up with an initiative to create an electronic educational platform that would be able to bring together students from different countries and universities on the same platform. Vittoria Idrisova, Vice-Rector of the Russian Foreign Trade Academy of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, agreed with the previous speaker and noted the unprecedented interest of students in interdisciplinary programs with an unusual combination, for example, media- management-technology. According to Vittoria Idrisova, such a unique product will be in great demand. Among the proposals there was an idea of creating an international educational school. It will allow to form closer ties between students.
Guillermo Palao, Coordinator of Projects with Russia, Professor of the University of Valencia, suggested that such a wide-scale meeting of representatives of leading universities can be called historic. The Alliance will immediately begin the implementation of all conceived ideas.
John Style, Vice-Rector for Internationalization of Rovira i Virgili University, recalled that Russia and Spain have common events in history, and the rapprochement of our countries will allow students to get closer to the cultures and will become the starting point of relations of a new level.
Francisco José Borge López, Vice-Rector for Internationalization of the University of Oviedo, suggested thinking over developing a flip class, a learning format in which students receive lecture material in the form of video lessons and then work over the material with a lecturer during online meetings. “Modern technologies make it possible to save a huge amount of resources and this should be used,” the pro-rector explained.
“We are interested in cooperation programs with Spain, and we already have them. However, we want more and we will productively work on this!” said Vladimir Mau, Rector of RANEPA. In conclusion, the rector invited all the discussion participants to the International RANEPA Summer Campus, the annual educational project of RANEPA in Kazan.
The signing of the alliance of Russian and Spanish universities will be held in April of this year and will become a platform for civil dialogue between Russia and Spain.
Anzhela Lulikian
All records of live broadcasts from the Gaidar Forum 2019
10th Gaidar Forum Organizers:
The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA);
The Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy (Gaidar Institute);
The Association of Innovative Regions of Russia (AIRR).
The general partners of the Gaidar Forum are Gazprom and Gazprombank; strategic partners include Prosveshcheniye publishing house, Coca-Cola, Pharmstandard group, ACIG Group of Companies, the Russian Textbook Corporation, SANOFI, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Russian Railways, MSD, and Mastercard; EY, Cisco and Russian Direct Investment Fund are partners. This discussion’s partners are Philips, Cherkizovo and RVC.
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