Management Board of the Erasmus + project Fostering Internationalization at Montenegrin HEIs through Efficient Strategic Planning - IESP held an online meeting on 13 November. The first part of the meeting was dedicated to the presentation of the draft Internationalization Strategies developed within the project by three Montenegrin HEIs. The rationales for developing draft strategies, the structure of the documents, the data presented in them as well as the priority areas covered and future development directions defined by the internationalization strategies were presented. Each document was commented on by the EU partners with examples of their best practices and suggestions for improvement of particular segments.
Internationalization Strategies with accompanying action plans for the period 2020-2025 will be the basis for intensifying internationalization activities at Montenegrin universities. These activities will be planned and implemented in the future through a carefully designed, strategic approach, following the example of renowned EU universities that are partners in the project. In the second part of the meeting an overview of the project activities implemented in the first project year was given.
The WP leaders presented the state of the art of activities within the work package they are in charge of. Thus, the University Côte d’Azur presented the results achieved within WP1 which was aimed at giving an overview of the best practices in the area of internationalization at EU universities. All the activities within this WP were implemented. The University of Ljubljana gave an account of the activities achieved within WP2 which referred to equipment procurement and capacity building of Montenegrin HEIs staff.
WP3 and WP7 activities implemented in the first project year were presented by the University of Montenegro. For WP3 an account was provided of the activities implemented with the aim of development of Internationalization Strategies, supporting documentation for internationalization and pilot summer schools in English language. The project management issues with the focus on the preparation of the intermediate technical and financial report to be submitted to EACEA were the focus of the presentation on WP7. The University Donja Gorica presented the current state within WP4 which refers to integration of internationalization at Montenegrin HEIs. As the lead partner of WP 5 the University of Cadiz gave an overview of results achieved in the field of quality assurance of projects activities, while the University Mediterranean presented the activities realized within WP6 i.e. all the actions undertaken in order to ensure the dissemination and visibility of project results .
Wrapping up the meeting the partners concluded that even though the project plan for the first year of its implementation was very ambitious and there was a high intensity of activities, the results achieved are quite impressive, especially considering the fact that they were implemented in the conditions of Covid 19 pandemic.