With a view to establishing new collaboration projects and strengthening current agreements, a UGR delegation headed by the Rector, Pilar Aranda, recently visited several Russian universities and institutions. The visits, which took place from 28 October to 1 November, were made to Udmurt State University (UdSU) in Izhvesk; Moscow State University; Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU); and the Embassy of Spain in Moscow. Through working meetings held at these institutions, the UGR promoted its Modern Languages Centre (CLM) and "Russkiy Mir" Russian Centre, established new mobility agreements, explored the feasibility of creating double international degrees in linguistic areas, and marked the anniversaries of former agreements with these partner universities.
The UGR delegation also included the Vice-Rector for Internationalization, Dorothy Kelly; the Dean of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting and Director of the "Russkiy Mir" Russian Centre, Enrique Quero; and the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting and Coordinator for Slavonic Philology, Simón Suárez.
The first visit was to Udmurt State University (UdSU) in the city of Izhvesk. The UGR’s partnership with this university, which started more than 25 years ago, resulted in the establishment of the first double degree between a Spanish and Russian university in the fields of Slavonic and Spanish philology. During the visit, attended by the Rector of UdSU, three agreements were renewed: the framework agreement, the student exchange agreement and the Erasmus+ interinstitutional agreement. This partnership has led to the growing presence of the Spanish language not only at UdSU but also in the city and in the surrounding region. In addition, new agreements were established to extend future collaborations to other areas such as tourism, fine arts, petrology, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics.
The next stop was Moscow State University; one of the leading higher education institutions in Russia. After a visit to the university’s main campus and its natural history museum, the UGR delegation met with the Rector and the Vice-Rector of International Relations. As part of this meeting, new collaborative projects were proposed with the aim of extending the current mobility agreements for students and teaching staff beyond the areas of modern languages and translation to other fields. Representatives from both universities also examined the feasibility of establishing double degrees in the area of linguistics and in economics.
Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU) was the next destination. This university was the UGR’s first partner university in Russia; a long-standing relationship that is reflected in the constant flow of mobility students and staff between both universities. In the working meetings with the MSLU Rector and her team, the current mobility programmes and double degree programmes were reviewed. Finally, a training project in the field of accessibility developed within the framework of the Erasmus+ KA2 programme was presented.
Additionally, the delegation visited the Embassy of Spain in Moscow, where they met with Ambassador Fernando Valderrama and with the Education Attaché, José Aurelio Llaneza.
Enrique Quero and Simón Suárez, Dean and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, respectively, also participated in the "Russkiy Mir" Conference.
