RAFU shares its experience of internationalisation of education

At the very beginning of June, the international vector of development of Russian universities was discussed in Samara within the framework of the interregional scientific and practical conference "International Activity of Educational and Scientific Organisations of the Russian Federation: Best Practices and Models of Regional Strategies". More than 600 representatives of universities and scientific organisations attended the event from 78 subjects of the Russian Federation, as well as the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan and others.

Maxim Zalyvsky, Head of the Project Office of the Russian-African Network University Consortium, took part in the conference. He made a report in the first panel discussion "The International Dimension of Regional Development Strategies: the Role and Place of Universities", emphasising the role of developing the African vector of cooperation in higher education.

Maxim Zalyvsky noted the important role of the international dimension in the activities of universities, the need to optimise the model of cooperation between universities of different countries (in particular, international units of universities) and regional authorities to achieve common development goals, gave examples of successful cooperation between the RAFU consortium members and African countries and universities.

Also, on 20 June, the VIII International  Industry hosted an international conference on similar topics - "Internationalisation of Higher Education - a Driving Force of Institutional Transformation of Society, Economy and State", where representatives of Serbia, China, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Myanmar discussed the most important aspects of internationalisation of higher education. The key topics of the discussion included: the place of the traditional system of higher education in the modern world and new directions of export of educational services, quality of education, actual formats of cooperation in the educational sphere, including networking. In the plenary part of the conference the Head of the RAFU Project Office Maxim Zalyvsky made a report on the development of the RAFU Consortium activities and the advantages of networking in the international educational space.

Nowadays, the adaptation of the management structure of the international activity of universities (infrastructure, personnel, updating of normative-legal and methodological support) in order to increase responsibility, manageability, successful response to the rapidly changing external contours of the modern international polycentric world becomes extremely important. In this regard, network interaction within the framework of RAFU activity, as a format of international educational cooperation, fully meets the requirements of flexibility in building long-term relationships between universities of different countries, voluntary participation, mutual respect for the interests of all parties of network cooperation. Maxim Zalyvsky, Head of the RAFU Project Office