Expanding International Cooperation at EAIE 2015

Rector Ilshat Gafurov and Vice-Rector for Education Dmitry Tayursky took part in the EAIE Conference 2015 in Glasgow, Scotland.

The accompanying B2B exhibition united universities from all over the world. More than 5 000 attendees arrived from 90 countries. The expo presented universities and university consortiums, national educational promotion projects (Campus France, Study in Finland, Study in Japan, etc.), summer schools, recruiting companies, consulting agencies.

KFU joined the event along with the other Project 5-100 participants. The University presented its programs, research activities, and cooperation opportunities.

Dr. Tayursky and Dr. Gafurov also held a number of meetings with their colleagues from overseas universities. Naturally, EAIE is an excellent venue for networking. An agreement with University of Bologna was signed. There was also a meeting with University of Gottingen representatives; a tentative agreement on their visit to Kazan before the end of 2015 was reached. The German side showed special interest in the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology with its amazing equipment and experienced team.

The parties also mentioned internships for foreign learners of Russian. Kazan University has been conducting summer language schools for overseas students for several decades. This opportunity seemed attractive to the visitors from Sciences Po – the renowned alma mater of French political leaders. Cecile Marin from the Directorate of International Affairs and Exchange showed interest in visiting KFU in November 2015 to discuss joint projects in detail.

At KFU there are currently two English-taught master's programs – Transition Management and Chemoinformatics and Molecular Modelling; there are also three full programs in medicine – General Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutics. A decision was made to expand English majors to eighteen starting next academic year.

Negotiations were held with two Taiwanese universities – National Chung Hsing University and National Chiao Tung University. The previous meeting with these two institutions happened in Taiwan in 2014. Chiao Tung University is famous for its IT education.

Also of note were the established contacts with University of Cape Town and a number of Brazilian universities. Namely, cooperation in oil and gas industry will be launched with Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo - UFES. The Russian-Brazilian government employees exchange program was also discussed with the representatives of national Project 5-100 Office.

In conclusion Dr. Gafurov visited University of Glasgow.