Our mission is being a regional centre of significant academic and cultural developments, representing an academic environment that offers high-quality and accessible education, in a process of pleasant, fair and transparent studying environment that unites the ideas from all over the world. Therefore, the participation of the International Slavic University in Erasmus+ plays a great role in the main strategy, particularly in the parts for modernisation and internationalization, titled MSU 2025. Our university acknowledges the key contribution of mobile staff and students and of participation in many international cooperation projects, to the quality of our higher education programmes. Our university is oriented towards priorities of the European Educational Area.
The International Slavic University is highly dedicated to implementing the priorities of the Erasmus+ Programme, and we already incorporated them in our 2025 strategy. In the longer version of our mission statement we have clearly stated that we endorse an original model of active mentoring studying process that brings together ideas from all over the world. Our Erasmus+ Policy Statement is mainly based on this part of our mission statement. In order to support our original model of studying, we need to exchange opinions, work on international research and development projects, establish partnerships, organize student and staff mobility activities, and so on. In addition, we strive to build a bridge between cultures and the knowledge of the east and the west in order to establish high academic standards.
With all these in mind, the university’s senate voted for the objectives of our internationalization strategy to be:
- Stimulate the international cooperation via strategic partnerships and engage staff and students in international research, development and innovation projects in both programme and partner countries.
- Improve our international reputation in order to increase the number of international agreements with HEIs from EU and beyond.
- Introduce the new possibilities of internationalization of our university via Erasmus+ in all departments.
- Increase the number of incoming and outgoing staff and students in mobility activities from EU and beyond through facilitated and improved IRO services and implementation of digital practices and ESC.
- Provide favorable conditions on both campuses for increasing the number of international students.
- Provide proper high-quality preparation for all mobility participants by trained IRO staff.
- Encourage our staff to develop their language skills in order to increase the number of study programmes carried out in foreign languages.
- Stimulate the increase of organization of international activities and stimulate increase of the number of participating staff and students in international events such as trainings, conferences, workshops, symposiums, summer schools.
- Blend the differences between real and digital campuses with the usage of blended mobility.
- Ensure sustainability by implementing the Erasmus without paper initiative and additionally encouraging the incoming and outgoing staff and students to take up environmentally-friendly practices through our activities.
- Develop joint degrees with partners from programme and partner countries.
- Use the Erasmus+ mobility activities as a tool for preparing our students for the labor market and increasing their employability.
- Increase the level of involvement of the Student Association and alumni in the university’s international activities and in the recruitment process of new staff and students for international activities.
Our university will participate in many activities included in the activities in Key Action 1 and Key Action 2. High quality mobility and cooperation with our partners are one of the central elements of our international strategy. We are dedicated towards cooperation with partners from all over Europe and beyond as a part of our strategy for internationalisation.
In our opinion the strategic partnerships for exchange of good practices and for innovation are suitable formats for projects we could work on with our partners. The strategic partnerships would help us and our students for the realization of our ideas and for advancement in the chosen fields for cooperation. We will mainly focus on developing ICT-related projects, especially in the field of inclusion of girls in the ICT. In addition, we will work on IoT innovation projects for smart agriculture and smart offices in order to further develop the skills of our students and staff.
With the activities we will carry we want to improve our international reputation. We want to be seen as a university in condition to carry out international projects and as a suitable partner for international projects in the field of innovation, research and development.
By employing additional staff who speaks two or more foreign languages in all departments, and also helping our current staff develop their language skills through proper Erasmus+ and additional high quality trainings, we will try to provide multilingual support for the incoming, but also for the outgoing staff and students. With proper support and improvement in our services, we will gradually increase the number of study programmes taught in foreign languages, and with that increase the number of incoming and outgoing staff and students. Also, by increasing our range of services offered, organizing international activities and events, and strengthening our capacities such as additional on-campus dormitories, restaurants and cinemas, we want to increase our capacity for admission of international students.
With today’s technology, our campuses are not the only places our students can learn. We will try to encourage students to use the internet in order to access their courses online, hence creating a digital campus. The skills they will gain will be important for their possibilities to take up blended mobility activities.
By going completely digital and implementing the Erasmus without paper initiative we plan to ensure the sustainability of our participation in the programme. We will also provide additional environmentally friendly practices on our website, so that mobility staff and students can have some inspiration and ideas on how they can help the environment.
Our long-term partnerships have taught us that that combining our experience adds additional value and helps our students develop better skills suited for the international labour market. We have two double degree study programmes with the Tambov State University from Russia – one in economics, and one in psychology. In the future, we would like to develop ICT, especially IoT-related joint degree study programme, and also, joint degrees in the field of occupational health and safety and food safety.
We are aware that the international experiences such as mobility activities improve the overall skills of the students. During the activities they develop a set of skills that is important for their future as employees or entrepreneurs. That is why we want to use the Erasmus+ mobility activities as a tool for better preparing our students for the labour market and increase their employability. Through our Student Association and alumni club we will try to engage our current students and alumni even more. We will encourage the participation of the Student Association in the Erasmus+ programme, and they will help us in the process of involving the students in the mobility activities through a “buddy system”. The alumni will be mainly engaged in activities for sharing their experiences, particularly the international experiences, and also involve them to support the additional opportunities for our current students. For example, they could support research activities, connect our students with the business sector or their current employers, and overall, help us set an example for future generations of students.
Our international strategy pays a lot of attention to all the segments that make a university truly international. Our directions and objectives are clearly set, and they will be the framework we will rely on in the following years. We are aware that the implementation of this strategy seeks engagement from all departments and we are working towards the outcomes. We see the internationalization as an essential process for our future success and we are ready to take the necessary steps in order to become an institution that has embraced the internationalization process and has benefited from it along with the staff and the students.