Kyrgyz Republic
371International Conference "Strengthening Academic Partnerships between Universities in Europe and Central Asia: Joint Programs, Research and Academic Mobility"
On April 23-24, 2025, Shohrat Bashimov, senior lecturer at the Turkmen State Institute of Finance, Habib Khalmamedov, lecturer at the International University for Humanities and Development, and Arslan Matkarimov, lecturer at the Turkmen State Institute of Economics and Management, as part of the delegation of the Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan, took part in the international conference “Strengthening Academic Partnerships between Universities in Europe and Central Asia: Joint Programs, Research, and Academic Mobility,” which was held in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek.
The conference was attended by university professors and researchers, higher education experts and national Erasmus+ offices from five Central Asian countries, representatives of educational and research institutions in Central Asia and Europe.
The main objectives of the conference are: enhancing international cooperation: providing participants with the opportunity to effectively establish and maintain international academic partnerships; modernizing curricula and programs; building research capacity; improving teaching methods: introducing and strengthening innovative pedagogical approaches; increasing student mobility and global competence; inclusion of sustainable development and ecology topics in academic programs and research projects.
The conference started with a welcoming speech by a representative of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Kyrgyz Republic. During the conference, reports were made by a representative of the Coordination Group for Global Policy Dialogue and Implementation of the Bologna Process, Professor Anne Katherine Isaacs, a representative of the University of Graz (Austria), Professor Ulrike Krawagna, and the Head of the International Ranking Department of the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers (Uzbekistan), Dr. Ilkhom Abdurakhmanov. The reports were devoted to the goals of sustainable development in Central Asian universities, global trends and opportunities in international higher education, as well as the development of effective innovative and interconnected programs.
The participants also discussed the development of higher education systems in the region, updating curricula, improving the qualifications of teachers, the possibility of creating joint regional projects, and agreed on the issue of rapprochement of educational systems in order to develop the intellectual and scientific potential of the region. The conference participants noted the need to preserve the achieved results of the projects and move to long-term strategic formats of cooperation. This meeting became a unique opportunity to exchange experiences, find new solutions and strengthen partnerships in the field of education.