The Sixth Annual International Universities Networking Conference
May 15-18, 2017
Moscow, Russia
IUNC Eurasia 2017 – the Sixth Annual International Universities Networking Conference has become a memorable and significant event aiming to facilitate the university cooperation development and agency relation building. The conference gathered around 180 participants from the whole world. Universities and recruitment agencies from Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Georgia, the USA, the UK, Spain, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Uganda, Brazil, Nigeria, Ecuador, Bolivia, Mexico, Paraguay, Portugal, Thailand, Indonesia, and other countries were represented at the event.
The participants were invited to the morden and fashionable Azimut Hotel Olimpic Moscow as the conference venue with a view on the beautiful Ekaterininsky Park where they could spend their free time feeding ducks and enjoying the weather (except one rainy day).
All participants had a task to discuss many important topics. Conversations were related to such serious subject areas as education partnerships, promoting and creating university cooperation programs, student exchange, dual degrees, international student recruitment, and many others. The special focus of the event was cooperation with universities from Russia & the CIS. Each participant could find the session and topic according to their interests and get the overview of regional markets. All sessions got a positive feedback from attendees and initiated further dialogs during coffee-breaks. As usual for IUNC Eurasia conferences, one-to-one meetings took place afterwards. During these business appointments the representatives of universities and other organizations met potential partners, discussed possible ways of collaboration, found mutual interests and just met peers from different countries and discussed common problems.
One of the most important part of the conference was the BRICS HigherEd Cooperation Forum. Its participants included university delegations from Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and China. All the Forum attendees got an excellent opportunity to meet a lot of BRICS institutions and discuss cooperation in this large special group along with the main program of the IUNC Eurasia 2017 conference.
This year IUNC Eurasia 2017 was marked with a great social event—the HigherEd Internationalization Award Ceremony & Gala Dinner. Internationalization of Higher Education Award 2017 was the first annual competition between Russian and CIS universities in the field of internationalization of higher education, thanks to which the best international projects of higher education institutions got recognition, and professionals got the opportunity to exchange experiences and get acquainted with the best practices. The Award Jury Members announced the names of the winners and gave the awards with the warm wishes. After the festive сeremony decorated with flowers and accompanied with champagne all participants had the opportunity to relax, communicate and have fun after the long day during the Gala Dinner which was full of different contests with Russian traditional prizes: Matreshka-Dolls (famous Russian wooden dolls painted by hand), Gingerbread (Russian tasty honey cakes), and others.
Networking and social activities are an essential part of the conference, that is why the IUNC Organizing Committee does its best to arrange unique networking opportunities for all. In addition to 30 official business appointments and daily networking breaks, the IUNC Eurasia 2017 attendees enjoyed the famous Evening Moscow River Cruise with dinner on board. The Moscow River Cruise was another way to thank the IUNC Eurasia participants for their support and express Russian hospitality. The dinner at the boat was accompanied by gorgeous night views of Moscow. A very friendly and relaxed atmosphere on the boat gave attendees the chance to relax after the fruitful day and to socialize.
IUNC Eurasia 2017 has become a place where new HigherEd partnerships have been set up and current relations have been strengthened.
IUNC Eurasia 2018 is awaiting its participants and guests next May.