On November 21, Vitebsk / Sergey Kotov - BELTA /. Vitebsk and Smolensk State Universities plan to intensify the development of partnership between the two universities within the framework of international cooperation projects under the European Union's "Tempus" programs. This was reported to the correspondent by the rector of Smolensk State University, Evgeny Kodin, following a working meeting with the rector of VSU, Alexander Solodkov, which took place today in Vitebsk. The development of international cooperation is one of the priority areas of activity for both universities. VSU and SSU participate in projects under the "Tempus" program jointly with universities in Russia and Germany, and both universities have all the opportunities to intensify such partnership, Evgeny Kodin is convinced. Thus, during the working meeting in Vitebsk, the prospects for interaction in the multi-level system of training and professional development of specialists in the field of educational management were discussed. Another important area of cooperation is interaction in the scientific sphere, the creation of joint creative teams and participation in programs of the Belarusian Republican Foundation for Fundamental Research (BRFFI) and the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (RGNF). Today, Russian and Belarusian universities are implementing three joint projects, and in the future, it is proposed to expand the scope of scientific developments to at least twelve projects, which are possible in scientific fields such as history, ecology, psychology, philology, and others. "This is the base from which we will build upon to develop scientific interaction broadly and fruitfully in financial terms," emphasized Evgeny Kodin. In addition, the partners are ready to fill the cooperation on student exchange between universities with new content and projects. Thus, Vitebsk and Smolensk Universities have agreed to work out the possibility and, as early as 2012, to hold a Belarusian-Russian student forum in the festival city of Vitebsk, to which representatives of the student community from Russian universities located in the border regions of Belarus are invited to participate. "Today our countries are members of the Customs Union, and tomorrow the Single Economic Space will already be in operation, so universities should also establish equally broad and close relations," believes Evgeny Kodin. -0-

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