ASU experience in international affairs was discussed at the International Relations Experts’ Forum in Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia

17 December 2015 International Affairs Department

On 1–3 December 2015 at Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia an annual seminar of academic society on the problems of international cooperation in education, science and innovations was held hosting over 700 participants from Russian universities represented by vice-rectors, heads of the international relations departments responsible for strategic development, collaboration with international and foreign organizations in education, science and innovations, educational services export.

Altai State University was represented by Vice-Rector for International Affairs Development Roman I. Raikin and Head of the Department of International Affairs Aleksey Yu. Rezinkin.

At the plenary session the reports were made by Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation V.Sh. Kaganov; Rector of Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia V.M. Philippov; Chairman of the Council of the Federation for Foreign Affairs I.I. Kosachev; Director of the International Department of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation N.R. Toivonen; Head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science S.S. Kravtsov; Head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs S.V. Pospelov; Deputy Director of the Federal Agency for CIS Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation D.Yu. Guzhelya; Rector of Pushkin State Russian Language Institute M.N. Rusetskaya; Director of the Main State Expert Center for Education Evaluation V.I. Skorobogatova; and representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Federal Migration Service, specialists of Russian leading universities.

The general theme of the discussion was dedicated to Russian universities’ modern internationalization, best practices and new challenges that confront the higher education establishments.

Vice-Rector for International Affairs Development Roman I. Raikin delivered the report at the “Topical issues of improvement of the quality, attractiveness and competitiveness of the Russian educational system in the world and regional educational space” plenary discussion.

Roman I. Raikin talked about the experience and prospects for networking cooperation of Altai State University in Asian educational space. As is well known, the networking cooperation encourages closer relationship between the universities located in different countries, long-term contractual relations, resources integration, joint educational and scientific activities. Universities’ involvement into networking cooperation allows to come down from occasional international contacts to comprehensive scientific and educational collaboration and extensive partnership; to combination of bilateral and multilateral projects; to effective transformation of the subject-oriented projects into interdisciplinary projects and so on.

International networking cooperation of higher education institutions can be realized with the help of various universal mechanisms: joint educational programs of different levels; academic mobility of lecturers, scientists and students; remote learning; international accreditation, independent evaluation of the education quality; establishment of networking dissertation committees, joint supervision of students’ thesis research; establishment of networking electronic library; operation of foreign subsidiaries and representation centers; joint programs of foreign enrollees recruitment; international educational exhibitions, forums and so on.

Altai State University uses all the above mentioned techniques of interaction with foreign partner-universities. ASU is a member of such major interuniversity associations as Eurasian Universities Association, Association of the Universities of Far East and Siberia of the Russian Federation and North-Eastern Regions of China, Russian Classical Universities Associations; it is a lead university of SCO networking university in such areas as regional studies, ecology, economy, pedagogy, IT-technologies. In 2013 ASU initiated the establishment of Asian Universities Association, which is currently a site of scientific and educational cooperation of more than 40 universities of 8 Asian countries. Every year series of international scientific and educational events are held under the auspices of the Association; the most outstanding event is considered to be the Asian Student Forum. At the moment, interuniversity electronic library, common platform for dissertation committees, Association’s scientific journal are being created.

Kazakh Language and Culture Center, Honored Department “Kazakh Way and N. Nazarbaev”, Center of Language and Culture of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Russian-Chinese Center of Education, Culture and Academic Mobility operate in ASU. A number of representational centers have been created in near-border Asian foreign countries.

Joint educational programs with the universities of China, France, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Tajikistan are realized at Altai State University.

It is clear that networking cooperation between universities as a phenomenon of our times has a great potential, as it enables the realization of synergetic effects of development, global competitiveness of the universities under current conditions. The emerging opportunities of networking cooperation of the universities in enhancement of the educational organizations’ work effectiveness, expenditures optimization, improvement of educational programs’ quality and development of academic mobility must be fully seized in the framework of modern model of higher education.

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