Vadim Perron, head of the International Office at the Vologda State University, spoke about the international cooperation of the Vologda State University during the session of the Academic Council of VSU.
At present, the Vologda state University has cooperation agreements with educational and scientific organizations from 15 countries in Europe, Asia and North America.
Over the past four years, 20 cooperation agreements have been signed with educational and scientific organizations from the Republic of Belarus, Austria, Poland, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Uzbekistan, China and the Czech Republic.
“We have connections with educational and scientific organizations from Germany, the Republic of Belarus, Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Finland in such areas as linguistics and intercultural communications, social technologies, applied mathematics, ecology and environmental management. The sphere of biotechnologies and information technologies has a high potential for further development,” Vadim Perron said.
VSU international visiting lecturers VSU:
- Department of social technologies, Prof. Seelisch (Germany);
- Department of tourism and hospitality — Dr. Wallner (Germany);
- Department of linguistics and intercultural communication — Dr. Waschik (Germany) and a teacher of Spanish – Salvador Luna Munoz (Spain);
- Department of applied mathematics – Prof. Enzo Orsingher (Italy);
- Department of the French and German languages – Paul Loyrette (France);
- Linguistic center of the University –Sameer Garach (USA).
Annually the Vologda State University hosts international academic and scientific events such as Winter/Summer Academy for the German language and culture studies in cooperation with the Landesspracheninstitut (LSI) at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany); a scientific and technical conference on the issues of the forest complex development as part of the International exhibition “The Russian Forest”.
The most significant events that took place in 2019 can be named:
- the Russian-American scientific and practical seminar “Preservation and interpretation of natural, historical and cultural heritage in Russia and the United States”, which was attended by historian of local lore from the United States – Dawn Lee Black;
- international seminar “Quality Control in the production process” with the participation of the Head of the St. Petersburg branch of the “Japanese Center for the development of trade and economic relations”;
- extension courses for teachers of Russian from the Czech Republic “Russian as a foreign language”. The courses were attended by 11 Czech teachers from the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic;
- the panel discussion “Russian-American company: scientists, entrepreneurs, diplomats” in the framework of the international Forum “Dialogue Fort Ross-2019”, which took place in June 2019 in Vologda.
An important area of international cooperation for the University is the international academic exchange, which allows VSU students and members of faculty to visit educational institutions in other countries.
The Vologda State University takes part in academic mobility programs in cooperation with the Landesspracheninstitut (LSI) at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany), the Evangelische Hochschule Darmstadt. University of Applied Sciences (Germany), the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences (Germany), as well as in programs under the auspice of youth exchanges organization “Droste House”.
In the academic year of 2018 – 2019, 31 students of VSU visited educational institutions in Germany. On a return visit, a group of German students from the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, under the supervision of Professor Boeck, visited VSU in September 2019 to participate in the international seminar “Social work with the disabled”.
As of December 2019, 102 international students from 13 countries study at VSU. They came from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Equatorial Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Estonia and Belarus.
The international students prefer engineering training. The Institute of mechanical engineering, energy and transport has 30 international students. 19 foreigners study at the Institute of mathematics, natural Sciences and computer science, and 17 students study at the Institute of civil Engineering.
“For the development of international cooperation in the university, we should take part in academic mobility programs under the auspice of Foundations such as Erasmus+, DAAD, and Fulbright. In 2020, we are planning to apply for participation in the Fulbright Specialist program. This program allows Russian educational institutions to invite lecturers from the US universities for a period of time up to six weeks”, Vadim Perron said.