9th-11th March

Paul Nixon and Lieke Steijgers (THUAS) visited MUNI. They held meetings with Břetislav Dančák, Vice rector for Internationalization, and Jan Pavlik, Director of Centre for International Cooperation, concerning the collaboration between the two universities and agreed that other THUAS colleagues would supply a training workshop in COIL that will be open to all Faculties. At the invitation of Eva Janebova (Faculty of Pedagogy), Paul and Lieke also gave two training workshops to staff, entitled ‘How to develop Strategic Partnerships’ and ‘Exchange Partnerships: From quantity to quality’. They were enabled via MUNI 4 project funding from the EU, as part of the Strategic Partnership arrangements between the two institutions.

13th to 14th February

Noora Kahra (TAMK), Susana Menéndez (THUAS), Juan Pérez-Miranda and Belén Navajas (UFV) held a meeting in Brussels in order to work together on the documents for the second call of the European Universities initiative proposed by the European Commission, together with members from three other universities. The group was superbly hosted by TAMK at the Tampere Region EU Office. They successfully submitted the proposal, with the name of UAccesS.

3rd-7th February

A group of students and professors from THUAS (María Martina, Ozcan Demir and Jochem Vreeke) participated at UFV in the Immersion Week Workshop, Intercultural Business Horizons. They had the opportunity to interact with Spanish students, attended several lectures and workshops, visited some companies and developed some cultural activities. The program was designed by José Peláez, director of Business degre, and professor José Luis Gómez Lega. This cultural immersion and Business challenges week has a very positive outcome for both students and Universities in Spain and in The Netherlands. This is also a valuable contribution to strengthening mutual knowledge about the working methodology, the quality standards, the pillars of our educational programs (internationalization and networking amongst others) and the staff members of both Universities.

Diana Haneveld (THUAS Senior Management Assistant) and Lisette Meijer (team leader Policy, Advice Quality and Operational Management) visited TAMK. During the visit, they had the pleasure to speak to several experts on quality assurance. They learned a lot about the national quality assurance system (FINEEC) and the TAMK quality assurance cycle. It was a very inspiring session in which they focused on mutual challenges (engagement, response, feedback) and possible solutions. They also discussed continuous learning and learned about TAMK’s non-degree education. Furthermore, they had a very informative session on digitalization and online learning. TAMK has really invested in their online education and it shows: they are able to build online communities amongst students and lecturers and they offer intensive and successful programs.

THUAS is proud to announce that its International Business degree was awarded a rating of ‘Excellent’ in Internationalization under the CeQuint award. IB joins the European Studies programme as being judged to be ‘excellent’, which is the highest level possible, in relation to their internationalization activities. Congratulations!

A delegation of 17 academic and support staff from THUAS visited UoD to expand current links and deepen international activity between the partners in line with the aims of The Hague Network, of which both are founding members. The visit was hosted by Emma Lister. The group met with the following counterparts: College of Business, Law and Social Sciences, College of Arts, Humanities and Education, Buxton Centre for Contemporary Hospitality, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and some of the central service departments like the Research Support Office, Professorial Council, and International Recruitment and Collaborations departments. The group had busy schedules meeting with different staff across the University, whilst also having time to visit some of the real world learning facilities available at Derby and also at Buxton campus. THUAS academic staff represented 4 different Faculties (M & O, BRV, ITD and SWE). There were also administrative support staff from M & O, BFM and OKC.

TAMK organized its 10th International Week for Engineering. Olga Peñalba (UFV Dean of the Polytechnic School) and Eduardo Pilo (Intnal. Coordinator of the degree in Computer Engineering) participated after the invitation of prof. Rikku-Matti Kinnunen, who had previously visited UFC campus.

Guillermo Arce, UFV Vice dean of International Relations of the Business and Law Faculty, took part at THUAS in an accreditation exercise with International Business degree. He also held meetings with Paul Nixon (Strategic Partnerships) and Elif Kiesow Cortez (International Law).