Staff members from the University of Szeged, Hungary, visited Universität Hamburg, Germany, this summer in order to establish connections with relevant departments at the EUGLOH partner university. Katalin Grezsa-Szabó LLM, Head of the Dean’s Office, wanted to explore potential collaborative opportunities, such as future student exchanges, professional practice and joint programmes as well as international research collaborations with the biggest research and educational institution in Northern Germany. She reflects on her experience:
My EUGLOH Story:
On the first day, we met the representatives of the Team Strategy and Partnerships at the Department of International Affairs. After a brief presentation of the structures at the University of Szeged and our own Faculty, we discussed where we could potentially expand our scope of cooperation between the Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Studies and Universität Hamburg.
The following day, the leaders and employees of the Faculty of Psychology and Human Movement Science welcomed us. We presented the University of Szeged, detailing the structure and trainings offered at the Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Studies. The Head of the Faculty Management, along with the academic and administrative staff, were the ones who gained insight into our institution's offerings and initiatives. Particularly, our Faculty’s physiotherapist training might have many reference points with UHH’s Faculty of Human Movement, so we briefed the colleagues on the work, available tools and research of our Physiology Department. Our hosts were thrilled to hold the meetings in German, enabling us to delve into the difficulties of the training programmes and facilitating collaborative brainstorming on potential best practices.
Due to the fact that the Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Studies at University of Szeged has recently launched a brand-new training, the “Healthcare Manager Masters”, we also visited the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences (WiSO) to get in contact with their team.
Overall, our visit to Hamburg proved to be extremely useful, establishing the groundwork for future cooperation. The cornerstones of this collaboration are outlined as follows:
- Getting to know each other’s institutions and the work conducted there.
- Exploiting mutual interests and potential collaborations in the fields of training and healthcare research for academic staff.
- Engaging in sport research as a potential area for cooperation.
- Internationalisation of the administration together with discovering the possibilities of staff exchange (Erasmus) and educational leave in order to exchange good practices.
- Organising matchmaking workshops.