Last week in Warsaw, we discussed NAWA programmes offered to universities, how internationalisation is perceived at universities and its relation to promoting and how to recruit on the Central Asian, the South American and the Caucasian markets. The first event presented by the National Agency for Academic Exchange took place on 16 February and hosted more than 150 representatives of universities from all over Poland.
The inaugural training meeting from the “Direct to Internationalization” series was aimed at not only at presenting the programmes offered by the Agency, but also at raising broadly understood topics related to the promotion of higher education and looking more closely at the markets of interest for Polish universities.
“Today’s meeting is a response to the needs of the academic community related to the internationalisation of higher education” – said Director Łukasz Wojdyga at the opening of the Friday’s event. After the Director’s warm welcoming, the floor was taken by the host of the event, Anna Chylak, Head on the NAWA Communication and Promotion Department. The inauguration consisted of two substantive sessions: Katarzyna Aleksy, head of the Department of Programmes for Institutions, familiarised the audience with the programmes offered by NAWA, and Hanna Reczulska, Head of the Department for Recognition and Authentication of Documents talked about the specificity of the issues related to the global circulation of documents.
Second part of the meeting was devoted to the promotion of universities on foreign markets. Justyna Gieżyńska, the President of Studybility and Luminar Foundation, touched upon relevant topics related to the most important recipients of promotion policy addressed abroad – foreign students. Together with university representatives, she wondered who are the international students in Poland and what quality do they regard as the most important of university.
After lunch, the participants gathered in smaller groups to listen to experts who specialise in markets that are of interest to Polish universities. During the first meeting NAWA offered the following workshop sessions:
- Central and South America, moderator: Dr Jonna Gocłowska-Bolek, University of Warsaw, Representative of KRASP Chairman for Latin America.
- Central Asia, moderators: Inna Suchkova from the Department of International Academic Cooperation, Gdańsk University of Technology and Joanna Mrowiec-Denkowska, Head of the Academic Exchange Office, Silesian University of Technology.
- Caucasus – Georgia, moderator: Giga Gogosashvili from the International Students Recruitment Office in the International Relations Department, Silesian University in Katowice, expert for Georgia in the Academy of Diplomacy.
The “Direct to Internationalization” project is addressed to university employees in Poland involved in the internationalisation of studies, mainly in terms of recruiting foreign students, but in the next years we would also like to extend it to other areas related to internationalisation. In the present academic year, we will have the pleasure of inviting universities to our four meetings. We encourage you to follow information on our website and subscribe to NAWA’s newsletter.
Photographic coverage of the event is already available on our Flickr.