A meeting of education and science ministers from countries participating in CEEPUS, Europe's second largest academic exchange program, has concluded in Warsaw. Representatives of all the countries affiliated with the program signed an agreement (link to PDF here.) CEEPUS IV for the next seven years. Thanks to the initiative, international internships for students and research and teaching staff from Central and Eastern European countries have been implemented for 30 years.
CEEPUS - the Central European Exchange Program for University Studies - has been in operation since 1995, and Poland is one of the founding countries. Since its establishment in 2017, the National Agency for Academic Exchange has been coordinating administrative work related to supporting student and faculty exchanges.
CEEPUS is the first cooperation program of Central European countries in the field of teaching and research, established on the basis of a multilateral international agreement. The primary objective is to support academic exchanges in the field of education and in-service training of both students and academic staff. CEEPUS is based on cooperation, with international mobility for students and teaching and research staff of accredited universities from CEEPUS member states.
Currently, 15 countries participate in CEEPUS: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Northern Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary and the University of Pristina (Kosovo).
In June 2021. Poland assumed the presidency of the Joint Committee of Ministers. Our presidency coincided with a period of intensive work to develop a new CEEPUS IV agreement, which was signed on September 20, 2023, during the Warsaw meeting, and will be in force from 2025-2032.
On the basis of the new agreement, it will be possible for CEEPUS countries to open up, upon the individual decision of each country and thanks to an additional pool of scholarships, for students and academics from higher education institutions operating in countries not party to the agreement to participate in exchanges within the CEEPUS IV academic networks. This means that it will be possible to continue cooperation within the CEEPUS program with scientists and students from Ukraine who arrived after February 24, 2022. In addition, at the request of the Minister of Education and Science, Przemyslaw Czarnek, the new agreement provides for the expansion of the CEEPUS organization to include the three Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Under the agreement, CEEPUS IV:
- support will be directed not only to those traveling for part of their studies, teaching or research projects, but also to those participating in remote learning, remote teaching and hybrid forms of learning and teaching;
- the CEEPUS IV scholarship will also be able to be awarded to employees of universities forming CEEPUS IV academic networks for the implementation of joint activities undertaken by partners within the network;
- the sending country will be able to introduce additional benefits for financially disadvantaged people or people with disabilities encouraging new groups of scholarship holders to take part in the exchange;
Ultimately, the implementation of CEEPUS IV until 2032 will be an important element of cooperation between countries in Central and Southeast Europe, positively influencing the improvement of the level and quality of education and scientific research carried out through academic exchanges, as well as the development of young researchers.
On Wednesday, September 20, Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek announced that Poland had completed its chairmanship of the CEEPUS Standing Committee of Ministers and handed over the chairmanship ceremonially to Hungarian Minister of Culture and Innovation János Csák.
The culmination of the two-day CEEPUS Week event was the award ceremony for the best university network by CEEPUS Secretary General Michael Schedl and Minister of Education and Science Przemyslaw Czarnek. The award, decided by the Joint Committee of Ministers, has been given since 2002. Due to the pandemic, it has not been handed out in the last two years, so in Warsaw, at a gala ceremony, three networks were awarded, winning in 2021, 2022 and 2023, respectively.
The Minister Prize Winner 2021 went to the Biology, Biotechnology and Food Science network, coordinated by the Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra comprising 29 institutions from 13 CEEPUS countries. The main goal of the project is the sustainable development of agriculture, food production and technology, taking into account social interactions in the intercultural context of the Danube region.
The prize was received on behalf of network coordinator Prof. Miroslava Kacániova by Dr. Maciej Kluz of the University of Rzeszow - a representative of the network partner.
The Minister Prize Winner 2022 was awarded to the VetNEST (Veterinary Network for Student and Staff Transfer) - Extended network. Its coordinator is the University of Zagreb. This regional network brings together 12 partners from 12 CEEPUS countries. It was founded as early as 1993 and offers lectures for both graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, it organizes 8 different summer schools led by its experts. They teach classes on topics such as biosecurity, zoonoses, aquaculture, exotic medicine and surgery, etc.
The prize was received by network coordinator Prof. Zoran Vrbanac
The Minister Prize Winner 2023 went to the network Fostering sustainable partnership between academia and industry in improving applicability of logistics thinking. which is coordinated by the University of Novi Sad and consists of 27 institutions and 11 CEEPUS member countries. The overall objective of this project is to promote the innovation and implementation of sustainable knowledge transfer between academia and industry.
The award was received by network coordinator Dr. Marinko Maslaric
Poland is the leading participant in the program, both in terms of the number of internships and the number of institutions carrying out joint projects. On average, about 300 foreign students and doctoral students and about 300 academic teachers come to Poland during the academic year, which makes about 550-600 internships per year. Every year, more than 600 Polish students, doctoral students and academic teachers establish cooperation with researchers from CEEPUS partner countries and conduct joint research. In the 2022/2023 academic year, 85 networks were implemented, of which Poland coordinated 11 of them (more than 10% of all networks). In addition, 155 Polish units act as partners in academic networks coordinated by universities from other countries. In the 2023/2024 academic year, 178 Polish institutions will participate in the exchange program.
Poland is actively using the CEEPUS program, responding to global and regional crises that also affect the field of higher education. In this context, it is worth mentioning that in 2020, Poland - as the third country of the CEEPUS Agreement after Croatia and the Czech Republic - has been enabled to implement CEEPUS scholarships in a virtual and hybrid formula. Moreover, less than two weeks after the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the Minister of Education and Science decided to allow Ukrainian citizens to apply for CEEPUS scholarships to participate in internships, summer schools and intensive courses organized in Poland.