On January 23-27, 2023, Vice-Rector for Scientific and Pedagogical Work Kateryna Skyba took part in the First Meeting of Representatives of Ukrainian Higher Education Institutions Involved in Internationalization Processes (first AMU Staff Week for Ukraine) at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland). The event was held within the framework of the Erasmus+ program and was aimed at intensifying educational and scientific cooperation between Ukrainian universities and Polish partners.
During the week, there were workshops, presentations, lectures, meetings with representatives of various faculties, excursions to the university buildings and the library. Much attention was paid to the peculiarities of participation in the Erasmus+ program and NAWA (Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange). Representatives of the International Relations Centre of the Adam Mickiewicz University presented current opportunities for Ukrainian academic staff and students to participate in academic mobility programs and receive personalized research scholarships. In addition to Polish colleagues, the invited speakers included Svitlana Shytikova, coordinator of the Erasmus+ office in Ukraine, who presented in details on competitions for projects open to Ukrainian universities, and her colleague from the Erasmus+ office in Brussels, Sabine Menou, presented the Epicur Alliance, an association of European universities, and announced open opportunities and peculiarities of participation in the alliance's projects.
The key event during the 1st AMU Staff Week was a roundtable organized by the administration and the International Relations Centre of the Adam Mickiewicz University. During the roundtable, the participants discussed the problems faced by Ukrainian higher education institutions and identified possible ways to solve them, as well as outlined perspective areas for cooperation. The establishment of a large-scale project was announced - the organization of more than 15 summer schools for 1000 students from Ukraine. The details of Khmelnytskyi National University's participation in this project are currently being discussed. At the same time, there are already the first results of the cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz University - for the spring semester of the 2022-2023 academic year, two students of KhNU have been invited to study at the Polish university for free.
Khmelnytskyi National University is sincerely grateful to its colleagues from the Adam Mickiewicz University for the invitation to participate in the first AMU Staff Week for Ukraine, an event that has become a platform for active discussion of internationalization issues, exchange of views and experience between Ukrainian colleagues and Polish partners. The representatives of Ukrainian higher education institutions once again proved their resilience in extraordinary conditions and impressed their Polish colleagues with a passionate desire to continue working and promoting the internationalization of Ukrainian higher education no matter what.