REPORT ON ERASMUS+VISIT TO MARRAKECH, CADY AYYAD UNIVERSITY MARROCO

The visit to Cady Ayyad was organized as a result of close cooperation while preparing, consulting and leading to Master thesis defence students from Cady Ayyad university. The topics of Master students‘ thesis were linked with the development of cultural communication competence and foreign language teaching and learning didactics. This introductory educational work inspired the topics for the Erasmus+ visit classes which might be relevant to Cady Ayyad students as the teaching material was connected with the issues that Marroco students were analysing in Lithuania. The major topics were revealing culture studines, emancipation of speaking, development of critical thinking via didactical systems such as Problem based learning, clasroom flipping, debate sessions and other active learning methods.

The whole visit was supervised by professor of Cady Ayyad Faculty of Letters and Humanities dr. Hanane El Aissi. The visit was well planned. All theoretical classes and workshops (8 hours in general) were based on collaboration and team teaching. The most impressive thing was that numerous multicultural audience of students were motivated, willing to take an active participation in discussions and debated on multiculturality. At the end of the teaching visit students presented their written reflections on their attitudes towards multiculturality and emancipated speaking.

The presented reflections will serve as a research data for future common multiculturality investigation of prof dr. Hanane El Aissi and assoc. prof. dr. Nijolė Čiučiulkienė. There are planned mutual research papers based on comparative analysis of Marrocian and Lithuanian students‘ attitudes towards emancipation.

During planned staff meetingd there was a possibility to meet prof. Abderrahim Benali, other collegues and to discuss the possibilities of future cooperation.

Cultural programme was very rich and intensive as well. During cultural programme prof dr. Hanane El Aissi organized several tours around the country and Marrakesh city where it was possible to see traditional historical cultural monuments, to observe local traditions and festivals.

The experience of the visit is very unique, providing a lot of new ideas and insights, that will influence the quality of my future teaching and research.

Cady Ayyad classrooms. Students have left, and university clasrooms look like Lithuanian.

Visit of tear of Agriculture academy to university of Novi Sad (Serbia)

The teachers of Agriculture Academy of Vytautas Magnus University prof. dr. Laima Česonienė (Institute of Environment and Ecology, Faculty of Forest Sciences and Ecology) and assoc. prof. Midona Dapkienė (Institute of Hydraulic Engineering, Faculty of Water and Land Management) visited University of Novi Sad (Serbia) according to Erasmus+ Staff mobility for training mobility agreement on June 10th to 14th 2019.

The University of Novi Sad is a public university in Serbia. It is one of the most important educational and research centers in South Eastern Europe with 14 faculties, around 50 000 students and 5000 employees.

The teachers had an opportunity to familiarize with the study process and reasearch at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, which has about 15000 students, enrolled in undergraduate and postgraduate (master and doctoral) programmes.

The teachers met with partners from the Faculty of Technical Sciences, discussed about possible cooperation in research, deepened knowledge in the field of environmental engineering.

Prof. Laima Česonienė presented an analysis of the impact of agriculture activity on the quality of surface water bodies in Lithuania. Assoc. prof. Midona Dapkienė shared experiences on wastewater management in Lithuania.

The representatives of Agriculture Academy of MGU visited Laboratory of Applied Chemistry, Laboratory of Waste Dump, Sewage Water and Air Monitoring, Laboratory of Environmental Engineering, Laboratory of Environment Protection Engineering and others, and familiarized with materials for various testing applications, testing methods and equipment.

Conference at Brenna Poland

On June 6-7 2019 assoc. prof. Jolita Greblikaite and lecturer Rolandas Rakstys (VMU Agriculture Academy, Faculty of Bioeconomy) were participating at 8th International Scientific conference „New trends in management and production engineering – regional, cross-border and global perspectives” at Brenna, Poland. Researchers presented were results in scientific research. They participated also in the meeting with the editors of sscietific journals cited in WoS Claritive Analytics and Scopus Databases.

Visit to the International Tourism Congress (Spain)

Lecturer dr. Rasa Pranskūnienė, from the Bioeconomy Development Faculty of Business and Rural Development Research Institute, visited the 22nd International Tourism Congress „Tourism is you: the value of people“, the Congress held in Castellon (Spain), on the 22th and 23h of May 2019. Dr. Rasa Pranskuniene has been invited to this International Tourism Congress as the keynote speeker to make the keynote speach „Overtourism: between the right to travel and residents’ rights“ by the new research article, which was published with a colleague from the Faculty of Bioeconomy development, Rural Development Research Institute, asocc. prof. dr. Dalia Perkumienė (Perkumienė, D.; Pranskūnienė, R. Overtourism: Between the Right to Travel and Residents’ Rights. Sustainability 2019, 11, 2138).

As well the speakers from Mexico, Ecuador, Morocco, Colombia and different parts of Spain have contributed with their work to the 22nd International Tourism Congress to reflect on the future of the tourism sector and the challenges it faces globally. Rafael Lapiedra Alcamí, Professor of the Department of Business Administration and Marketing of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) and director of the Congress, has made a very positive balance of the conference, which have served to „highlight the importance of human capital in business, especially in the tourism sector, where unsatisfied employees transfer this dissatisfaction to the customer more directly. We all agree on putting people at the centre of business management,“ says Lapiedra, „but we are doing something wrong when there are so many unhappy employees. In the service sector the attitude of the workers is even more important“.

dr. Rasa Pranskuniene with Congress Director prof. dr. Rafael Lapiedra Alcamí

Presentation of research results at the international conference “Pushing Regions beyond their Borders” in Spain

Assoc. prof. dr. Gintarė Vaznonienė from Business and Rural Development Research Institute and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of bioeconomy development assoc. prof. dr. Bernardas Vaznonis attended the international scientific conference “Pushing Regions beyond their Borders” (organized by the Regional Studies Association), in Santiago de Compostela University, Santiago de Compostela, Spain in the period 4-8 06 2019. During the conference, in the section “Rural Economy” G. Vaznonienė made presentation “Local community as an actor in shaping regional social infrastructure services”, and in the section “Sustainability, Climate Change and Environment” B. Vaznonis made presentation “The importance of environmental public goods for local economic development: the case of Kaunas region”. Scientists also participated in the scientific discussion of both sections. At the end of the conference, certificates were received.

„R1 Lietuva“ Scholarship Competition for VMU Students

For a third year in a row, Vytautas Magnus University is cooperating with „R1 Lietuva“ to offer seven one-time scholarships of 200 EUR to third/fourth year BA or first/second year MA students with higher academic achievements (grade average for the previous semester must be 9 or higher) and strong involvement in social and public activities within the university and beyond.

Students wishing to participate in the competition for the „R1 Lietuva“ scholarship have to submit the following documents to studentas@vdu.lt until June 16^th, 2019:

Free-form letter of motivation for the scholarship;
A resume (Curriculum Vitae) and (or) description of activities within the University and beyond.

Scholarships will be awarded to the best students in the following fields:

1 scholarship – Humanities;

1 scholarship – Arts;

1 scholarship – Engineering and Technology;

2 scholarships – Social Sciences, Law, Business and Public Management and Educational Sciences;

2 scholarships – Mathematics, Informatics, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences and Agricultural Sciences.

The decision regarding the awarding of the scholarships will be made by a commission, which will consist of representatives from „R1 Lietuva“ and Vytautas Magnus University. In the absence of appropriate candidates in a specific field of studies, scholarship may be reallocated to other fields of studies.

„R1 Lietuva“ scholarships will be awarded in a ceremony by the end of the spring semester of the 2018/2019 academic year.

About the Scholarship Founder

„R1 Lietuva“ is international company that is leading as provider of technology-based cycle management service. By adapting the latest technologies to human resources, the company effectively manages the cycle of maintaining health care systems.

Developed and tested by R1 RCM, R1 Performance Stack℠ seamlessly complements the healthcare organization’s infrastructure, helping to improve patient cash flow and cash flow management while reducing operational costs and patient satisfaction.

The mission of the company is to be a reliable partner to manage revenue while customers can focus on the post important things.

„R1 Lietuva“ Service Center has been operating in Kaunas since 2014 and currently has about 650 employees.

Secondment in the University of Helsinki

Lector Erika Besuparienė from Research Institute for Bioeconomy participated in University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Foresty, Departement of Economics and Management on 3-7 of June, 2019. The main aim of training was the development of skills about innovative methods and software of agriculture economics empirical research.

The training was useful of possibilities to discuss and also to try how the artificial intelligence methods could be applied on tax modeling researches. One of most innovative artificial intelligence methods is evolutionary algorithms. The research goal function and constrains was written with Matlab software, there exist possibility to use evolutional algorithms – genetic algorithm. Artificial intelligence methods can help for users to find optimal problem decision without difficult mathematical equation, but for user the principles of algorithms operation are still black box.

Also during the meeting with the partners prof. Vesa A. Niskanen (University of Helsinki, Finland) and prof. László T. Kóczy (Széchenyi István University, Hungary) was discussed about future internship in the autumn semester in Lithuania.

Training visit at Centre for Biorobotics

On 27-31 May 2019 junior researcher Egidijus Kasiulis from Institute of Water Resources Engineering at Faculty of Water and Land Management visited Centre for Biorobotics at Tallinn University of Technology with Erasmus+ training visit. During the visit E. Kasiulis met with Environmental Sensing and Intelligence research group, which leader Jeffrey A. Tuhtan presented the premises and laboratories of the Center and introduced to their research topics and their inventions that are used for environmental studies in rivers, seas, lakes and glaciers (e.g. underwater video camera with software that can recognize fish species and can be used for fishways monitoring; sensors that can travel through hydropower plants to measure what impact could be done to migrating fish by turbines and hydraulic structures). E. Kasiulis during his visit also participated in field work, where research group tested their newest invention – SmartGeoParticle which will be used for classification of the rivers and ecosystems analysis. The data gathered with SmartGeoParticle across the globe will be an open source in designated Wiki page. There are plans in the future to make measurements with this newest invention and in Lithuanian rivers. At the end of the visit E. Kasiulis presented his research topics to the Environmental Sensing and Intelligence research group. Afterwards there was a discussion on future collaboration opportunities.

Secondment in the Russian State Agrarian University

Professor Jonas Čaplikas, PhD, of VMU Agriculture Academy, Business and Rural Development Research Institute, visited the Russian State Agrarian University – Moscow K. A. Timiryazev Agricultural Academy through ERASMUS + program from the 13th to the 17th of May. During the visit, the professor gave a lecture on the Strategic Development of Agrobusiness for students of the Faculty of Economics and Finance, discussed healthy and high-quality food policy in the European Union and Russia with the students of the Faculty of Technologies, participated in the academic readings in the name of the famous Russian economist, Nikolay Kondratyev, who formerly taught at the university and who was a pioneer in the theory of cycle economics, “long waves”, for identifying the main qualities of the “sixth wave”. Prof. J. Čaplikas is a member of the board and expert of the Agency for Accreditation of Agrarian Profile Study Programs in Russia. Therefore, during the visit, he met with the management of this agency and discussed the emerging issues of study accreditation and possible solutions.

„20th Cambridge Heritage Symposium: Cooking Identities and Tasting Memories: The Heritage of Food“

Lecturer from the Bioeconomy Development Faculty of Business and Rural Development Research Institute dr. Rasa Pranskuuuniene visited CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY (UK) and attended „20th Cambridge Heritage Symposium: Cooking Identities and Tasting Memories: The Heritage of Food“ during 9 – 11 of May 2019. The annual Cambridge Heritage Symposium (CHS) was set up in 1996 as a forum for discussing and sharing ideas, questions, and case studies arising from working with or studying heritage. In short symposium organisers wanted to provide an opportunity for talking and thinking together around topical issues within the wide framework of heritage studies. From the outset the Symposia have aimed to create an annual forum to bring together students, university and independent researchers, heritage practitioners and managers, to thinking critically and creatively about topical issues within the field. Over the years the organisers sought to retain the strong emphasis on discussion, and have aimed at days that focus on learning together. „20th Cambridge Heritage Symposium „Cooking Identities and Tasting Memories: The Heritage of Food“ is exploring and challenging how food is or becomes heritage and how, in turn, this shapes identities or cultural practices provides an avenue to appreciate difference while also demonstrating how all facets of food – its ingredients, preparation, and its consumption – can be unifying within and between cultures. The conference was divided into three themes: Identity, the heritagisation of food, and ceremony.