3 October 2014
September 15-20, 2014, EEUA team embarked on a journey to the heart of Czech Republic – the fabulous Prague, for the annual participation in the internationally well-known EAIE conference. This year, under the challenging theme “Stepping into a new era”, EAIE participants walked down the path of internationalisation of higher education, the changes and transformations it has overgone, in all aspects of teaching, learning and administration, over the past 25 years, and tried to look into the next 2 decades.
EEUA team consisted of 4 key representatives – EEUA General Director Mr Bogdan Voronovskyi, EEUA Universities Relations and Marketing Manager Ms Yulia Yakovleva, EEUA Membership Manager Mr Alexander Lavrushin and especially for Spanish-speaking countries - EEUA Manager Regional (países hispanohablantes) Ms Khrystyna Bandrovska.
It is the first time EEUA targeted Latin America so closely, giving all partners from this region the opportunity to conduct the business appointment with EEUA in Spanish. Naturally this simplified the discussion of possible cooperation and greatly contributed to mutual understanding.
EEUA stand was on the chartreuse and welcomed a great number of old and new friends and colleagues. It was great pleasure to see again many of our acquaintances from previously attended conferences - NAFSA, ERACON, EAIE etc.
In order to share Russian culture, EEUA organized a Russian Reception at our stand, serving traditional Russian drinks and appetizers. Not only could the visiting educators find out about CIS universities and ways to establish cooperation with them, but also get a closer insight into the Russian culture.
Besides that, all EAIE attendees who left their business cards at EEUA stand had a stunning opportunity to participate in the competition for the legendary Yota Phone, organized by EEUA. Yota Phone is the Russian Smartphone which in 2014 took the lead in the list of top most innovative gadgets at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. We would like to congratulate the winner of the contest – Ms Katherine Dunkerley from Boston University!
In the 4 days of the conference EEUA representatives conducted numerous one-to-one appointments with university representatives and HE professionals from all over the globe. It is notable that most interest towards establishing cooperation with CIS unis came from Brazil.
Quite a lot of educators were interested to find out more about joint research projects with CIS universities, as well as about various student and tutor exchange programs. EEUA acquainted foreign universities with a convenient platform for finding suitable partners from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and CIShttp://net.eeua.ru
Needless to say that within the conference EEUA presented the four International Universities Networking Conferences held successively in Washington DC, Sao Paolo, Dubai and Moscow. They all arouse great interest in the international community of educators and a number of universities proceeded with the first steps or registration for the forthcoming IUNC North America.
Overall it has been an exhilirating conference week, full of potential partnerships, dynamic sessions, engaging workshops etc.. It definitely was a lifetime experience to immerse in the vibrant atmosphere of international HE community and share our expertise with peers from different countries.
We remain strong advocates of comprehensive internationalization and are looking forward to meeting our new and old partners at the next EAIE conference or at one of IUNC 2015 international university networking conferences!
