Second Seminar of the European Culture and Technology Lab+ ‘Thinking Human First’ Seminar Series to Take Place

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The discussion of the second seminar within the ECT Lab+ ‘Thinking Human First’ seminar series will focus on the quality of interpersonal relationships in the context of social media. The patterns of behavior projected in the cyberspace and the “colonization” of the human cognitive world with outer content, manipulation, idealization and /or omnipresent commercial messages are important factors in this context. To what extent, despite the advantages of digital communication, does it reproduce the preconditions for emotional alienation and difficulties in maintaining of full value relationships is the main question of the discussion. It is an attempt to clarify the benefits and harms of online communication and to explore new forms and ways of emotional experience of the technologically engaged individual in order to offer opportunities for prevention of counterproductive influences.

Date and time: Thursday the 27th of May, 17:00 CET

Webex link: https://utt.webex.com/utt-en/j.php?MTID=m2e4f6aa9412b02b69f3ced3d8a97a317

 

 

Leave No One Behind: B+NESDG: Bhutan + Nepal Higher Education for Accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals

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The International Projects Unit (IPU) of the International Cooperation and Foreign Students Department (ICFSD), RTU, has started implementing a new Erasmus+ capacity building project with partner universities from Spain, Greece, Nepal and Bhutan – B+NESDG. The aim of the project is to apply the Principles of Sustainable Development in two developing countries (Nepal and Bhutan) through:

1) Creating “integral institutions” that foment sustainability, inclusion and social responsibility in every part of the institutions.

2) Integrating education in Sustainable Development into Institutions of Higher Education using a quality-based, inclusive and equitable approach

3) Modernizing the current pedagogical framework to instill in students the knowledge, capabilities, values and attitudes necessary to become responsible citizens

4) Developing extended capabilities through training of the entire university community

5) Generating a new, flexible curricular framework through non-perspective nature of its content.

The activities and trainings foreseen in the B+NESDG project are centered on the Education, having as the main objective inclusion of sustainability principles within all aspects of institutional operations. In that way the project aims to strengthen the capacity of the higher education institutions from Bhutan and Nepal involved in the project (Royal University of Bhutan (RUB); Nepal Engineering College (NEC); Sagarmatha Engineering College (SEC); Kathmandu University (KU); Pokhara University (PU); Far-western University (FU) to support the process of achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) on a national level.

The project is coordinated by Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (Spain) – one of RTU’s partner universities within the European University of Technology (EUt+) initiative.

For more information about the project, please contact the International Projects Unit of RTU: Agnieszka Maj (Agnieszka-Kamila.Maj@rtu.lv)

https://bnesdg.eu/

RTU has started work on a new Erasmus+ Capacity Building project SMARTI

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From April 2021 Erasmus+ Capacity Building project ‘‘Support for Innovative Methodology, Approaches and Tools for Teaching through the Medium of English in order to improve Educational Yield, Sustainability and Internationalization’’ (SMARTI) has started it’s implementation. Project team includes 15 partners from 6 countries and RTU is one of the four European partners that will help promote the excellence of education in a number of higher education institutions of Armenia and Russia by developing and implementing EMI educational programs and establishing EMI centers.

Partners of the SMARTI Project:
1. Technische Universität Dresden (Germany)- Project Lead Partner
2. Riga Technical University (Latvia)
3. Liverpool John Moores University (UK)
4. Universidade Catolica Portuguesa- Faculty of Biotechnology (Portugal)
5. Ogarev Mordovia State University (RF) –Lead Partner Russia
6. Irkutsk National Research Technical University (Russia)
7. Kazan Federal University (Russia)
8. Petrozavodsk State University (Russia)
9. Certification Association Russian Register (Russia)
10. Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia (Armenia) – Lead Partner Armenia
11. Vanadzor State University after H. Toumanyan (Armenia)
12. Armenian National Argrarian University (Armenia)
13. Nalbandyan State University of Shirak (Armenia)
14. Goris State University (Armenia)
15. National Centre for Professional Education Quality Assurance (Armenia)

The activities of this project are aimed at the formation of a sustainable and effective teaching environment in English in higher education. The project involves the development of methodology and practical tools, as well as direct training of faculty to work in English as a teaching environment.

One of the key planned results of the project will be an establishment of corresponding preparatory centers within the Russian and Armenian universities, whose area of responsibility will include activities for additional training of teaching staff, consulting, methodological and linguistic support for teachers teaching in English.

In the three-day online kick-off meeting representatives from all of the 15 member universities of the Project Consortium presented heir universities and project teams, as well as the importance of EMI in terms of the internationalization of universities. A number of working issues were discussed, management was clarified, as well as changes conditioned by COVID-19.

The duration of the Project is three years (2021 – 2024) and RTU in the project will participate in consultations during development of teacher competence descriptors, and will be involved into tuning of the monitoring methodology for PC universities. RTU will also organise a 10 days EMI training for EMI participants, as well as develop EMI training modules for them. RTU together with partners from Certification Association Russian Register (Russia) and National Centre for Professional Education Quality Assurance (Armenia) will manage the WP3 – Quality assurance and will lead a quality assurance seminar in the 3rd year of the project. Moreover, RTU will contribute to all planning and regular work management procedures and will be involved in all international project meetings, the key interim and final conference of the project.

For more information about the SMARTI project, please, contact the International Projects Unit of RTU: Ieva Ziemele, ieva.ziemele@rtu.lv.

Erasmus+ Capacity Building Project MEGA Seminar Results

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Year 2021 marks the end of several Erasmus+ Capacity Building projects that the International Projects Unit (IPU) of RTU started implementing in 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the implementation processes slightly, but fortunately all the projects were able to tackle these difficulties. One of the projects that managed to successfully complete its activities was MEGA – a project focusing on building capacity by implementing mhGAP mobile intervention in SADC countries. On May 7th the MEGA final conference – “New Dawn for Mental Health in Southern Africa” – took place, during which the main outcomes were presented to seminar participants.

RTU team was honored to present the MEGA mobile application designed for mental health screening and its development process. Also, other presentations given during the MEGA final conference displayed strong evidence that the MEGA application has already had a positive impact on the daily work of primary healthcare specialists in South Africa and Zambia. This is the reason why the MEGA application will be publicly available on Google Store after the project lifespan, thus supporting the sustainability of the project and the project outcomes.

All the consortium partners are extremely satisfied with the results achieved and hope that they will have the opportunity to continue the fruitful cooperation within the fields of health care, mental health and beyond. More information about the MEGA project is available on the project website: https://mega.turkuamk.fi/

   

EthiCo – Project Focusing on Ethics and Ecology in Technological Education

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As a member of the European University of Technology (EUt+), Riga Technical University (RTU) is committed to strengthening its relations with all EUt+ partners not only within the European Universities initiative, but also by implementing other joint research and cooperation projects. One of the projects aimed at broadening cooperation among all EUt+ partners is EthiCo – an Erasmus Strategic Partnership (KA203) project with the aim to develop new approaches to ethics and ecology in technology education. The project is coordinated by Professor Noel Fitzpatrick from Technological University Dublin (Ireland) who is also leading a structural unit within EUt+ – the European Culture and Technology Lab (ECT Lab+). All ECT Lab+ partners are also actively involved in the EthiCo project: TU Dublin, University of Technology of Troyes (France), Hochschule Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Riga Technical University (Latvia), Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Technical University Sofia (Bulgaria), Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus) and Technical University of Cartagena (Spain).

ECT Lab+ aims to develop research in the arts, humanities and social sciences within EUt+ and focus on science and technology that includes philosophy of technology. EthiCo is the first ECT Lab+ project that has received funding and its importance is explained by Prof. N. Fitzpatrick as follows: “With the advent of ecological transition, ethical and ecological questions have tended to converge in relation to the development and impact of technologies; the focus of the project will be to develop ethical frameworks in order to better understand the ethical implications of technological development in and for society in a time of transition.”

ECT Lab+ partners are currently developing a new project application that will add an additional dimension to the topics addressed by EthiCo and focus on the study of aesthetics. For more information about the EthiCo project and the work of the ECT Lab+, please contact the International Projects Unit of RTU: Anete Beinarovica (anete.beinarovica@rtu.lv)

DOMINO – Educational mobile application for prevention of Domestic Violence

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Riga Technical University (RTU) is happy to announce that work with “DOMINO – Educational mobile application for prevention of Domestic Violence” project has started. The project was kicked off by a two-day online meeting hosted by Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) from Finland. TUAS team has a long-lasting history of working with domestic violence, prevention of which is the key focus of the DOMINO project.

The pandemic has brought us a deadly virus and the results are reported daily on all the global news channels. With COVID-19 being the main focus, other problems that existed already before the global pandemic and continue to get worse are receiving less media coverage. The COVID-19 pandemic has kept people locked in their homes for more than a year, making domestic violence more and more frequent.

The DOMINO consortium aims to tackle the increasing domestic violence problems by providing an educational mobile application, which aims to increase end users’ knowledge about domestic violence and ways of preventing it. Previous fruitful cooperation with TUAS within the framework of the MEGA project (“Building capacity by implementing mhGAP mobile intervention in SADC countries”) allowed RTU to be nominated as the technical partner of the DOMINO project. RTU team will use the competencies developed in previous projects and develop Intellectual Output 3 – the DOMINO mobile application.

       

Scholarship for students interested in business development in Finland and Latvia

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The Finland-Latvia Business Association scholarship is awarded to a student from Latvia or Finland, who is interested in developing the bilateral business relations between Finland and Latvia.

Whom

This scholarship is for a student from the university or university for applied sciences in Latvia or Finland and the student is going to defend his/her Bachelor’s or Master’s Thesis in the academic year 2021/22.

The scholarship is awarded based on applicant’s topic for thesis that is related to finding new business opportunities or new technologies to be implemented to start-ups or industries to strengthen and increase bilateral business relations between Finnish and Latvian enterprises.

Scholarship

The scholarship is 1,000.00 euros and it is granted once a year for one student. The scholarship is paid in two instalments. The first instalment is paid after the thesis topic is accepted by the respective university. The second instalment is paid after the student has presented the thesis to the Finland-Latvia Business Association.

The student receiving a scholarship is required to present the thesis to the Finland-Latvia Business Association after it is successfully defended in the respective university.

How to apply

Please, send your informal justification why you should be considered for a scholarship (max. length 500 words) to Ms. Anne Hatanpää, Secretary General, Finland-Latvia Business Association by 30th June 2021. Address: anne.hatanpaa@chamber.fi

Finland-Latvia Business Association – bridge between Finnish and Latvian companies.

The task of our association is to support Finnish and Latvian companies in finding each other. We share information and experiences between different stakeholders. We have been doing this work for over 20 years. Our active members will ensure that our work continues for at least the next 20 years.