Sharing Best Practices in Internationalisation at the EAIE Annual Conference in Seville

On September 12-15, HSE took part in the 29th Annual Conference of the European Association of International Education, which was held this year in Seville, Spain. As a part of Study in Russia, a joint exhibition pavilion organized by the Russian Academic Excellence Project 5-100, HSE held over 90 meetings with current and potential partners to discuss student mobility and other cooperation opportunities.

HSE representatives signed agreements on cooperation and student exchange with several universities, including Universite Internationale de Rabat (Morocco), the University of Helsinki (Finland), and the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). New research opportunities for student and faculty exchanges (including Erasmus + scholarships) were also discussed at working meetings between HSE representatives and leading institutions of higher education from Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the USA, Singapore, Japan, and other countries.

As the largest and oldest European association for internationalization of higher education, EAIE has more than 3,000 members from over 80 countries. Aside from providing an opportunity for networking among universities, EAIE is also one of the major forums worldwide for discussing the latest trends in international higher education.  Three HSE staff members hold elected positions in the EAIE Expert Communities devoted to specific issues of international higher education: Yulia Grinkevich, Director of Internationalisation in Strategy and Management; Oksana Chernenko, Director for Innovations in Education, in Summer Schools; and Olga Krylova, Head of the HSE St. Petersburg International Office, in Marketing and Recruitment. In addition to actively participating on the respective EAIE Expert Communities at the conference, HSE was also featured among the speakers at two sessions. 

Yulia Grinkevich also co-presented at a session entitled 'What you need to know to make research collaboration with ‘the Russians’ work' with Felix Azhimov, Dean of School of Humanities of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU). Chaired by Irina Ferencz, Deputy Director of Academic Cooperation Association (ACA, Belgium), the session aimed to show how two very different universities situated in different parts of Russia – HSE and FEFU – internationalize their research. The speakers focused on several points, namely, international conferences, laboratories, journals indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, and summer schools. They also engaged the audience in discussing the practical advice and approaches to managing visa and cultural barriers.

During the third session, entitled 'Creating unity on campus: professional development for university administrators' and chaired by Bárbara Costa, Director of International Office at University of Porto (Portugal), two cases were presented. The first was the experience of HSE in creating a professional development programme for university administrators; the second was the case of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) on how a training course on internationalization for administrative staff was transformed into a large-scale project co-funded by Erasmus+ 'Systemic University Change Towards Internationalisation' (SUCTI), which was presented by Marina Casals Sala, Director of International Relations. The session focused on how to engage administrative staff in internationalization efforts given the key role they play in implementing the university’s strategy. For administrators to have a better idea of how strategic goals can be translated into regular administrative work and what changes are needed in terms of routines, a shared space for communication is needed. This also leads toward a shared space of values and enhances staff members’ capacity to work together on new solutions for unfamiliar challenges An outline of the session was published on the EAIE blog.

Apart from the Annual Conference and Exhibition, EAIE also has vast knowledge base of publications and resources for professionals in international higher education. HSE has made several contributions by sharing its experience as a globally-oriented university through EAIE Forum magazine (Winter 2016, on the role of international officers at universities) and its blog post ‘Rethinking international students: reaching unity in diversity’.

The call for proposals for the 30^th Annual EAIE Conference and Exhibition will open in October; the overall theme is 'Facing outward'.

Photos by: 5-100 Project Office/ Sociocentre, Bárbara Costa

Prepared by Maria Shabanova