© SMARTI

A new EU Erasmus+ capacity building in higher education (CBHE) project, entitled SMARTI of which TUD is the coordinating partner, began at the beginning of 2021. It is financed by the European Union. The project run time is for three years, from January 2021 to 2024.

The aim of the project is to further the use of the English language in Russia and Armenia to teach academic BAs and MAs in science, maths, medicine, engineering, IT etc., where English is not the official language, and in which the students' first language is not English. This will lead to the internationalization of HE programmes in both Russia and Armenia, with concurrent benefit to TUD, as well as the EU partners (known as Programme Countries) in Portugal (Universidade Catolica Portugal- UCP), Latvia (Riga Technical University- RTU), and in the UK (Liverpool John Moores University- LJMU).

There are 5 Russian and 6 Armenian partner HE institutions in all, as well as one associate partner.
Russian partner institutions: Ogarev Mordovia State University (MRSU), Irkutsk National Research Technical University (INRTU), Kazan Federal University (KFU), Petrozavodsk State University (PetrSU), Certification Association "Russian Register" (RR)
The Armenian partner institutions: Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia (PAARA), Vanadzor State University after H. Toumanyan VSU, Armenian National Agrarian University (ANAU), Mikayel Nalbandian Shirak State University (SUSh), Goris State University (GSU), National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance, Foundation (ANQA)
Associate Partner: National Association of Teachers of English (NATE), NGO in Russia

Ultimately, the project will achieve the following in Russia:

• Make Russian education internationally recognizable
• Increase the number of international students
• Offer versatile educational programs at all levels in English

and in partner country Armenia:

• Increase the employability of the students by introduction of EMI Degree progammes
• Make Armenian tertiary education fully recognizable for EHEA
• Improve the quality and accessibility of education through updated EMI content and methods to support HEIs and internationalization of Armenian education

More detailed information about the project is to be found in the SMARTI project summary document and https://smarti-erasmus.eu

The TUD team involved consists of:

Co-ordinator: Professor Dr. C. Prunitsch, Dean of the Faculty of Linguistics, Literature and Culture Studies, TUD
Co-Co-ordinator: Gerard Cullen, EU Capacity Building Project Co-ordinator at LSK, TUD
Project Officer: Sven Riddell, SLK, TUD
Project Officer: Sandra Erdmann, SLK, TUD

A new third-party funded training and exchange project, CroBoLearn, has been launched at the MSZ. This stands for "Cross Border Learning". It is about joint, cross-border teaching and learning between the language centers of TU Liberec and TU Dresden.

© CroBo Learn

In times of crisis, such as the current coronavirus pandemic, cross-border teaching and learning must take on new forms if it is not to come to a standstill. Virtual Exchange

© CroBo Learn

and flipped classrooms are a driver of innovation and intercultural learning at the university and have the potential to develop and expand the following key skills:

© Helena Neumannová

• Media and digital literacy
• Skills for autonomous learning
• Skills for networked, cooperative and cross-border learning
• Intercultural competence
• Foreign language skills

The aim of the project is to develop and pilot virtual exchange formats and flipped classroom methods in the context of foreign language teaching and business courses.

Specifically, teachers and students from the Faculty of Economics at the Technical University of Liberec (CZ) and the Technical University of Dresden (DE) are addressed.

Through joint exchange projects, but also through collective development work, the online cooperation between the two partner institutions is to be strengthened.

Project activities and phases:

May 2021 | Kick-off conference of the project & kick-off workshop of the training series

May - June 2021 | Online training series for teachers with a focus on: Virtual Exchange and Flipped Classroom

July - September 2021 | Joint development of the virtual exchange and flipped classroom scenarios

October 21 - March 22 | Piloting of the exchange projects and flipped classroom scenarios at both universities

April - June 2022 | Evaluation of piloting & development of model courses with annotated scenarios and successfully tested materials

July - August 2022 | Consolidation of the results

Project with Columbia University NY, USA

Project with Columbia University NY, USA

Harriman Institute, Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies

Prof. Klavdia Smola, Chair of Slavic Literatures, is collaborating on the large anthology "Late Soviet Underground", which will be published by Oxford University Press (over 50 authors). Both the university and the publisher are among the most renowned in the world. There are also four colleagues working as co-editors who have a high international reputation in their field (to be published in 2021/22).

Chair of Slavic Literatures collaborates with Professor Evgeny Dobrenko Sheffield University (Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies) , the world's leading expert on Soviet culture.

• Work on the thematic issue "National Faces of Socialist Realism: Beyond the Russian Literary Canon" for the probably best-known and most competitive journal for Eastern European Studies "Slavic Review" (to be published in 2022)

Prof. Klavdia Smola, Chair of Slavic Literature, is organizing an international conference together with the Moscow School of Economics (Faculty of Humanities / School of Philological Studies) from 13-16 October 2021 entitled "(Counter Archive) Memorial Practices of the Soviet Underground".-The conference, entitled "(Counter) Archive: Memorial Practices of the Soviet Underground", will be followed by the publication of an anthology of the same name by Palgrave McMillan (to be published in 2022). The university and the publishing house are leading in Russia and internationally.

Prof. Klavdia Smola, Chair of the Chair of Slavic Literature, has signed an

• agreement with the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences on future student and doctoral student exchanges

In addition, a renowned lecture series "Aesthetics of Politics: Cases of Europe and the USA" (working title) will be organized with the university in the winter semester 2021/2022.

The Institute of Classical Philology at the TUD has a long-standing partnership with the Institute of Classical Philology and Classical Studies and is one of the most renowned addresses in Poland:

• It has an established network with many partners in Eastern and Central Europe
• The Institute provides insights into the research conducted at both locations in regular workshops
• Mutual excursions and the opportunity for taster days are intended to increase the incentives for student exchanges. In 2017, the Institute was awarded one of TU Dresden's "Internationalization" best practice prizes for this concept .

Dr. Christopher Pieper is a Lecturer in Classics at Leiden University, where he leads a third-party funded project on the reception of Cicero (VIDI project Mediated Cicero from January 2017 until 31 December 2021). The Department of Classical Philology at TUD cooperates with the Institute of Greek and Latin Language and Culture at Leiden University.

• Mutual invitation to lectures and joint planning of an organized international and top-class conference on Cicero
• This will also result in a jointly edited anthology (The Scholia on Cicero's Speeches. Contexts and Perspectives)