St Petersburg University develops cooperation with the Kyrgyz Republic
An online meeting has been held with representatives of Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. The parties discussed the further development of inter-university partnership, the development of joint academic programmes and the establishment of close scientific cooperation.
Sergey Andryushin, Vice-Rector for International Affairs of St Petersburg University, presented a number of initiatives aimed at the implementation and development of joint projects with Kyrgyz universities. These include opening a representative office of St Petersburg University at Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. The office will assist in organising research projects and coordinate joint activities of St Petersburg University with Russian-national Slavic universities.
The representative offices of St Petersburg University is quite a successful project, which makes it possible to draw the attention of the academic community to the initiatives of the two universities, to those events that are traditionally held at the site of representative offices.
Sergey Andryushin, Vice-Rector for International Affairs of St Petersburg University
During the meeting, the parties discussed a proposal of St Petersburg University to use its e-learning resources in the teaching and learning process at Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. St Petersburg University is the leader in online education in the Russian market, leading in terms of diversity (from neurolinguistics to courses in Japanese) and the number of courses posted on the national digital OpenEdu platform. Salavat Usmanov, Vice-Rector for Academic Activities of Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, said that Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University is interested in signing a networking agreement to actively use the resources of St Petersburg University. He also added that their university is ready to share experience and provide unique materials for the implementation of joint projects, preparation of common textbooks, manuals and reference books related to Russia’s study of Central Asia. ‘Coronavirus gave us a great impetus to create our own online learning system, so we are also ready to use your voluminous resource and provide our own online courses on: history; archaeology; political science; international relations; and regional studies to name just a few,’ said Salavat Usmanov.
The Representative Office of St Petersburg University project is one of the key tools to develop international cooperation of St Petersburg University. It is aimed at: promoting the Russian language, history and culture; organising joint events, international conferences and roundtable discussions with partner universities; and implementing academic exchange programmes. As part of the project, St Petersburg University cooperates with eight countries worldwide: Spain, the People’s Republic of China, Greece, Korea, Italy, Iran, Türkiye, and the Republic of Uzbekistan.
Moreover, Salavat Usmanov, Vice-Rector for Academic Activities of Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, supported the initiative to develop joint network programmes. He noted that Kyrgyzstan lacks specialists in engineering-oriented physics, information technology, and bioengineering. ‘Such a variety of fields, which are presented at St Petersburg University, is missing in Kyrgyz universities, so we would like to implement them in our joint work,’ Salavat Usmanov added.
For her part, Irina Grigoreva, Deputy Head of the Educational Programmes Department at St Petersburg University, suggested that the Kyrgyz side select a programme for the immediate stage of networking cooperation.
As a result of the meeting, the parties agreed to prepare a roadmap for cooperation and start implementing the identified projects. ‘I think that we will find a lot of common ground for joint work’, concluded Salavat Usmanov.