Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange is a member of the UniWeliS Project consortium.
Its aim is to support the internationalization of higher education through the professionalization of services for mobile academic staff. The Partners of the Project, co-financed under the European Union "Erasmus +" Programme, are also: Slovak Academic Information Agency (Slovakia) - Project coordinator, Academic Cooperation Association (Belgium), Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria), Comenius University (Slovakia) and University of Niš (Serbia).
The integration of scientists and researchers is a key element of the internationalization of science and higher education units. Mobile scientists who receive high-quality support before, during and after their stay, can concentrate on their tasks – research and teaching simultaneously. That is the reason why they have an even greater contribution to the work of the research teams, which they become part of. The same applies to the host units, which also become beneficiaries of this type of activities. In our Project, we want to present what kind of support need mobile researchers and how to train the management and administrative staff of higher education institutes (HEIs) and research and development units in this area.
The UniWeliS Project is divided into several intellectual outputs (IO). The main goal of the IO1, coordinated by the Academic Cooperation Association, was to gain knowledge about the difficulties in scientific mobility. The result of the IO1 is a report which is an analysis of the existing barriers and specific needs of PhD students and researchers coming for fellowships. The report shows, i.a., that scientific institutions should develop short- and long-term partnership strategies with external institutions in order to consolidate shared services and maintain regular exchanges at the expert level. In addition, the report indicates that in recent years, many research institutions across the CEE region have made noticeable progress in attracting and supporting foreign scientists (especially in the early stages of their careers). As the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange, we also made a significant contribution to the creation of this document. We conducted questionnaire research and in-depth interviews among representatives and representatives of Polish units.
The result of the IO2 is a collection of several dozen good practices in the field of admitting foreign scientists. This set presents a very wide range of solutions: from cooperation with graduates to organized support in the field of social integration, issues related to health insurance and accommodation.
Currently, the IO3 – entitled "Comprehensive training program and its online version" – is implemented. This stage is coordinated by our Agency.
At the beginning of April 2022, an on-site meeting for Project Partners will take place in Warsaw, during which we will discuss the modules of the prepared training scenario for the scientific mobility.
The report after the IO1 of the UniWeliS Project can be found below (the report is available in English):