• LATEST

Embracing internationalisation: Reflections on SEA-EU Staff Day

  • In
  • 08:35, 16 Aug 2023

The historic Valletta Campus hosted in July the first ever SEA-EU Staff Day. The event brought together University of Malta’s educators, researchers, and administrative staff in order to summarise the accomplishments of the first phase of the alliance and unveil ambitious plans for its second phase.

The meeting was chaired by Rector’s Delegate on the SEA-EU Alliance, Prof. Alan Deidun. “Alliances of European universities, exemplified by SEA-EU, are the future of modern higher education. They are the answer for a number of challenges which we face, including the competition for funding”. Throughout the event, informative sessions highlighted the key initiatives and achievements of the SEA-EU.

As the first phase of the SEA-EU project drew to a close, the participants had the opportunity to hear the success stories from the various UM institutions which emerged thanks to the cooperation with the SEA-EU partners. A few examples are:

“Strengthening digitalisation for a better student service.”
~ presentation given by Dr Colin Borg (the Office of the Academic Registrar)
“The Joint PhD in Marine and Maritime Sciences and Technology is intended to offer an excellent education to students in research fields related to the sustainability of our seas and oceans, their resources and associated services. The Joint PhD will offer an international experience, promoting multi-disciplinarity, enhancing mobility, and facilitating mutual learning and cooperation among countries to address common challenges.”
~ presentation given by Prof. Ing. Maurice Apap (Doctoral School)
"The BIP on Marine Data Literacy combined virtual and physical mobility in Cádiz. This course introduced students to programming, GIS, as well as other software packages that can process satellite data and other observations to validate models, for oil spill detection, and to compute bathymetry."
“The development of the SEA-EU Toolkit for the evaluation of online programmes provided an excellent opportunity for all partner universities to pool ideas, share expertise and collaborate to integrate the diverse contributions into a functional, comprehensive and user friendly resource to facilitate the quality assurance of educational programmes delivered through e-learning” 
  • Former Rector’s Delegate for the European University of the Seas, Prof. Godfrey Baldacchino, gave an overview of the various successes for the first phase of the SEA-EU. 

“SEA-EU presents UM and its staff and student community with a fantastic opportunity to participate in and benefit from a network of European Universities, with co-funding from the European Commission. UM is well placed to engage actively in cooperation with 8 other partner universities within SEA-EU, involving such areas as student mobility, staff training and the development of various joint degree programmes.”

Current Rector’s Delegate of the SEA-EU, Prof. Alan Deidun, presented areas that will be tackled in the next years, from digitalisation, to sustainability and the culture and sport events.

The session was finished with a short speech by Pro-Rector for Research & Knowledge Transfer, Prof. Ing. Simon G. Fabri during which he thanked all attendees for their presence. "Teamwork and collaboration, not only within UM but also with the other partners of the alliance, is the key to success. Events such as this are extremely important to extend and promote the idea of international cooperation even beyond the walls of the university."

This informative event also encouraged an open exchange of ideas and feedback, and ended with a lively Q&A session with the audience.

Categories

© L-Università ta' Malta