Study Group ESGI-123/BEEs-01

Project in focus, St. Petersburg, Study Groups

Hi, this is Sergey Lupuleac.

Last autumn we hosted a study group ESGI123 (nice number, isn’t it?).3_1It also has a second name BEEs01 (Business Engineering Education Study groups).
We are going to present it here in details because it was really great event and we like to recall it once more.
First I want to describe how it was organized and how it is related with present day political affairs. Saint Petersburg and Kiev Polytechnic Institutes were established by the decree of Russian czar Nicolas II in 1899. Both Universities entered ECMI in 2011. Our Universities even appear to be a little bit alike.

Saint Petersburg Polytech                                               Kiev Polytechnic

So we regarded the colleagues from Kiev Polytechnic as our closest relatives. Then abruptly the relations between our countries become so tough that it was difficult even to think about any collaboration. But we’ve got unexpected and very generous aid from Germany. Volkswagen Foundation started in 2015 so called Trilateral Partnerships initiative. I quote here the program objectives from Volkswagen Foundation:
“Against the background of the current conflict between Ukraine, Russia and the EU the Foundation aims to strengthen cross-border cooperation between scholars, scientists, and academic institutions from all countries involved. Thereby, it intends to contribute to building rapprochement, confidence, and understanding in the region and to maintain a dialogue with colleagues in Germany, too.”
We applied for support of BEEs project for organization of three study groups in Germany, Russia and Ukraine. And our application was approved. So now the University of Koblenz Landau, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and National Technical University of Ukraine, Kyiv Polytechnic Institute established partnership that was also joined by Lappeenranta University of Technology.

3_4                              Chief delegates from Finland, Ukraine, Russia and Germany

ESGI123 is the first study group organized by this consortium with support from Volkswagen Foundation. In our next posts we will cover problems of the study group proposed by such companies as Airbus SAS, Robert Bosch and Powerflute.