A Harmony Project Review Meeting and Conference on “Internationalisation in Higher Education And Borderless Cooperation Between European And Asian Universities” was held at the Vellore Institute of Technology on 12-13 April 2023. Five members of the Harmony team from Hyderabad went to the meeting and actively participated in the proceedings. In his opening address, Prof. Rafael de Miguel González, of University of Zaragoza, Spain gave a summary and overview of the project and stressed on the fulfillment of the goals of the project in the last phase over the next year. He talked about the academic, intercultural and financial challenges and implications of the project beyond the five years. He also hoped for continued collaborative work on internalization. Ms. Christina Armutlieva, from the Varna Institute of Technology discussed the Digital Storytelling Project and the competition being held at the partner countries. The University of Hyderabad was one of the first to complete the competition and announce the results of the competition.
The next session began with a lecture by Prof. Aparna Rayaprol on “Internationalisation of Higher Education” which focused on the challenges and learnings based on the long experiences of internationalization at the University of Hyderabad. She said that the Harmony project had partners from Europe and Asia and a mix of smaller institutions and larger universities. Their international goals may bedifferent depending on their specialization,and institutions need to use their strengths for partnerships. A bottom-up approach where the faculty take leadership in initiating collaborations has been the most successful strategy. The next presentation from the UoH by Prof. N. Siva Kumar and Dr. S. Shaji summarized the involvement of the UoH in the Harmony project. They said that UoH was represented in all the project meetings at Mumbai, Varna, Vilnius and Spain and Vellore. The Harmony team at the UoH also held a one-day capacity building workshop on Internationalization for the officials at the university.
https://herald.uohyd.ac.in/workshop-on-internationalisation/
Other partner institutions from Spain, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Indiareported on their own institutional journeys with the Harmony project. The final meeting of the project will be hosted by the Daffodil University in Bangladesh.
The post-lunch first panel discussion focused on the Friends teahouse and its goal for intercultural understanding. A new facility called ‘Friends Tea House’ funded by the European Union-supported Harmony Project on Internationalisation at UoHwas opened in the SIP Building on April 11, 2023, for international students at University of Hyderabad by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. B. J. Rao. It was inaugurated in the presence of the international project coordinator of Harmony, Prof. Rafael de Miguel González, and Juan Antonio Vallés Brau of University of Zaragoza, Spain, and Slovenian partners of the project, Dr. Olesea Sirbu and Ms. Anastasia Strelnicova who visited UoH on their way to Vellore.
Speaking on the occasion, Prof. González conveyed his appreciation of the progress made by the UoH Harmony team on the internationalisation project. He said the project was intended to bring better synchronization in internationalization between European and Asian Universities. Applauding the initiation of the Friends Tea House at UoH, Prof. González said the project plans to formally connect the 40 Friends Tea Houses created under Erasmus+ support. The idea behind the Tea House is to create a social space on the campus for international and domestic students to interact and contribute to enhancing intercultural awareness.
https://herald.uohyd.ac.in/friends-tea-house-for-international-students-opened-at-uoh/
The second panel discussion was on International Projects and Linkages and Prof. R. Siva Prasad and Prof. J. Prabhakara Rao were the UoH participants. They underlined the long experience of the UoH faculty in partnering with and managing Erasmus and other projects with the European Union. They talked about the administrative and financial management of the projects both in the institution and with the partners.
The second day of the conference was planning for the future and discussion on the problems and hurdles that different partners have been facing. The conference ended with thanks to the generous hosts at VIT led by Prof. Seenivasan.