63

November 2012

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OPINION

The Eranet Mundus project

Marc Ruiz-Zorrilla Cruzate - Academic coordinator, Eranet Mundus. UB

Eranet Mundus (Euro-Russian Academic Network-Mundus, 2011-2015) is a project coordinated since 2011 by the University of Barcelona (UB) that forms part of the European Union's Erasmus-Mundus project, the aim of which is to reinforce the quality of higher education in Europe and promote dialogue and understanding between people and institutions from different cultural backgrounds through cooperation with countries outside of the European Union. The Eranet Mundus project forms part of action 2 in the Erasmus Mundus programme, which focuses on the setting-up of inter-institutional cooperation partnerships between universities from Europe and targeted third countries.

The Eranet Mundus consortium consists of ten European universities (University of Barcelona/UB, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya/BarcelonaTech/UPC, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Université de Poitiers, the Universität Duisburg-Essen, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, the University of Glasgow, the Università di Siena, and the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra), eight Russian universities (the State University of Saint Petersburg, the Russian State Hydrometeorological University in Saint Petersburg, the Pskov State Pedagogical University, the South Ural State University, the Siberian Federal University, the Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Demidov Yaroslavl State University and the Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod), and five associate entities (AQU Catalunya, the Russian National Accreditation, the Committee for Nature Preservation of the Russian Geographical Society, Friends of the Baltic and the Spanish Instituto Superior del Medio Ambiente).

Eranet Mundus aims to establish strong ties and mobility flows through 3-year grants between the member universities of the consortium, and more specifically between students on all levels of higher education (bachelor, master's and doctoral levels), teaching and research staff, and administrative and services staff. The participation of students and teachers from outside the consortium is also envisaged, as well as special attention for disadvantaged groups and citizens in vulnerable situations in the Russian Federation. The budget allocation for Eranet Mundus is approximately EUR 2.5 million. The project provides Russian universities with experience of the model at European universities and vice versa, and how to successfully deal with the challenges facing higher education in present-day society.

The main goal of Eranet Mundus is to construct a stable and ongoing mobility scheme between Europe and Russia and to establish a solid framework for future collaborations, as well as meet disciplinary requirements in Russia and Europe as a whole. Another objective of the project is to train new generations of teachers and professors on the various different levels of education, a professional sector that in Russia is undergoing an aging process, and prevent the brain drain of researchers who are in training. Eranet Mundus also has the goal of widening and strengthening international cooperation in civil rights and citizenship, sustainable development and the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity.

The programme is effectively managed by the universities and associate members of the consortium through a series of working groups, namely, the Plenary Group, the Executive Group, the Selection and Recognition Group, the Quality Group, the Communication Group and the Sustainability Group. The Quality Group is responsible for setting the quality indices used by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and the participating universities to assess the programme. This group is made up of two European universities, two Russian universities, AQU Catalunya and the National Accreditation Agency of the Russian Federation, members of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR). The participation of these two bodies in the Group and in the Eranet Mundus project in general is of great importance, and the EACEA has placed particular emphasis on this, given that, amongst other things, it assures the quality of the procedures being applied and proposed academic products and ensures transparency in the implementation of the project.

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