Summary

In the beginning of autumn, between 1st and 4th of October 48 representatives of various education institutions and research centres took part in the first Contact Making Seminar of the Scholarship and Training Fund (STF). The seminar was organized in cooperation with STF’s partner institutions from Norway - The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU) and Iceland The Office of International Education.

Official opening of the seminar was done by Mr. Mirosław Marczewski – acting Director General of the Foundation for the Development of the Education System who was accompanied by honourable guests from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Poland: Ms. Sidsel Bleken – Minister and Ms. Agata Hernik-Ślusarczyk – Adviser (EEA Grants), as well as Mr. Michał Rzeszewicz – Honorary Consul from the Norwegian Consulate in Gdynia.

The CMS programme was composed of and plenary sessions working group classes during which the participants were matched together in order to develop their ideas for bilateral, trilateral or multilateral project proposals. As a result, at least 10 proposals of prospective projects were drafted by the participants. We hope that the outcome of these project proposals will be mutual and a long-term cooperation between project partners, which will have its beginning in the application process for the STF funding, and that later it will go far beyond the process of project implementation.

Project proposals of CMS participants tackled, among others, the following issues:

• innovative methods of teaching,
• increasing the number of mobilities (of both student and staff) between HEIs from Poland and EEA countries,
• building up common understanding between Polish and Icelandic high school students,
• working on the system of assessing HEI’s systems of quality assurance,
• cooperation between physical education and physiotherapy departments in the field educating through sport.

Apart from discussion on potential themes and fields of future cooperation and prospective project proposals, the participants were also given chance to discover the beauty of the city of Gdańsk during sightseeing evening and tasted a little bit of Pomeranian tradition and culture during cultural animation workshops and evening with “szanty” (sailors’ singing).

The organizers would like to express their gratitude towards honourable guests: Ms. Sidsel Bleken – Minister and Ms. Agata Hernik-Ślusarczyk – Adviser (EEA Grants) and Mr. Michał Rzeszewicz – Honorary Consul from the Norwegian Consulate in Gdynia, as well as STF’s partner institutions from Iceland and Norway. We would also like to thank Professor Janusz Ryczkowski – Vice-dean of the Chemistry Department of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, and at the same time STF’s academic expert, for his participation in the seminar and assistance which he offered to the CMS participants.

Above all, however, we would also like to thank the CMS PARTICIPANTS for their heads full of ideas and their positive attitude, and also for the immense effort which they made in preparing themselves to the seminar and to the evening when all had to present their institution, region/country to their fellow colleagues from abroad.

We hope that the aftermath of contact making seminar will result in strengthening the relations between the EEA countries and Poland to the mutual benefit of the citizens of all countries

CMS countries

Iceland
Norway
Poland

Programme of the seminar
STF activities - presentation
"International partnership - why not?" - Katarzyna Aleksandrowicz' presentation

Gallery