14.03.2008

One of the issues of the REC seminar which took place on March 13, 2008, was the participation of Irkutsk State University in the competition announced within the framework of the Programme “TEMPUS IV”. According to the terms of this competition, the cooperation of European and Russian institutes which submit a common application should be aimed at the reformation of curricula. This programme is for 3 years. The winners of the project will be supported by grants of 500-1500 thousand EUR. Andrey Mantsivoda, ISU Professor, a coordinator of application preparation, announced the structure of this competition, specified the tasks and expected results for our University.

The main aim is to create a new education environment for students. As a basis it is necessary to develop a magister educational programme of the University “Ecologist – Land User” integrated into the consortium of four European universities which have been harmonized their master programmes and united them into the general one “Environmental Management”. Irkutsk State University has longstanding relations with one of these four universities – Christian Albrecht University (Kiel, Germany). These two universities participate in the current competition “TEMPUS”. However, this time the realization of this project is undertaken by REC ‘Baikal” instead of ISU. Future interaction between REC and Kiel University is within the framework of the survey area of the Research Educational Center “Baikal”. Two others of these four universities are likely to become our partners in the competition.

Andrey Mantsivoda singled out major blocks of the future educational programme. It supposes an integration of the ISU magister programme into the “Environmental management”, as well as students’ mobility and interrelated systems of internships. The creation of virtual platform on which students will be able to solve mutual problems studying at the same course in different universities is also the main constituent. Andrey Mantsivoda also stressed that integration into the European system of education and consortium expansion due to the participation of Russian universities are global problems. It is planned to start with elaboration and licensing of some educational courses and with organization of international summer schools on Lake Baikal.

The deadline of application submission to an Italian office “TEMPUS” is April 28, 2008. Besides Irkutsk State University and Christian Albrecht University, two more partners have already been known – Polish Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan) and Buryat State University (Ulan-Ude). The participation of other potential co-partners is under negotiations. The project is of interest to many universities, and the work will be continued regardless of the competition results.

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