Staff week: internationalization on the agenda

[Article] - Published on November 18, 2024 in International Partnerships, European University CHARM-EU

From November 12 to 14, the UM welcomed partner universities from the Coimbra network network and European alliance Charm-EU to an " Away week " on the theme of internationalization. An opportunity to strengthen existing links and develop new collaborations.

International relations or internationalization? It was with this question that François Pierrot, UM's Vice President for International Relations, welcomed participants to Away Week(staff week), held in Montpellier from November 12 to 14. He presented the UM's international strategy in its entirety, from the Global South to the Global West, stressing the need to better identify the partnerships to be developed, as well as the importance of intra-European collaborations.

Drawn from nine countries (Portugal, Lithuania, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, the UK and Norway), the twenty or so participants in this staff week on the theme of internationalization represented the partner universities of the Coimbra Group, a network of long-established, high-level, multidisciplinary European universities, and the Charm-EU alliance of European universities.

Sharing best practices

Over the three days, partner universities and representatives from the University of Montpellier alternated between enlightening talks and presentations of concrete practices around the notion of internationalization, such as international mobility, welcoming international students and involving staff in Erasmus+ projects. But also optimizing the international experience, inclusive education thanks toOpen Education resources and innovative pedagogical tools, integrating sustainable development objectives into higher education programs...

Several of these topics were addressed through examples from Montpellier, such as the welcome extended to international students at the UM and the "Welcome to France" label, the hybrid mobility programs tried out as part of the joint master's program supported by Charm-EU, and the IDIL teaching program focused on interdisciplinary research and supported by the " nourish, care, protect" pillars of excellence.

Privileged meetings, promising fruitful cooperation, were also held with the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Law and Political Science, MOMA, the IUT MS, Polytech, the Faculty of Education, the IUT Béziers, the IUT Nîmes... All of which can only be an asset in developing and strengthening UM's international partnerships within a forward-looking Europe of higher education.