Jean Monnet Erasmus+ project coordinators took part in a webinar for the winners of the 2020 competition
On the third of December, the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine hosted a webinar «Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Project Winners' Day: How to successfully implement a project» on the platform of the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine. The event was aimed at Jean Monnet project implementers: teams of winning projects in 2020, coordinators of current projects, Erasmus+ coordinators in the international relations departments of higher education institutions, their accountants and financial managers.
Zaporizhzhia National University (ZNU, Zaporizhzhia National University) was represented at the meeting by Associate Professors Olena Tupakhina (JMM EUVOLIA Project Co-coordinator), Katerina Sirinyok-Dolgaryova (JMM EU-INDY Project Coordinator), Natalia Vengerska (JMM DIRUT Project Coordinator) and Iva Pavlenko (JMM TEMPUS Project Coordinator).
The event was moderated by Svitlana Shytikova, Head of the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine. At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Martin Schroeder a representative of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, welcomed all the winners of 2020 and noted the uniqueness of this year's competition which was extremely successful for Ukraine – 38 projects out of 360 were won by Ukrainian organizations and universities. Zaporizhzhia National University also has something to be proud of, as among the winners of 2020 our university ranked second in the number of projects (three) second only to Sumy State University which won seven Erasmus + Jean Monnet grants. In general in terms of the total number of Jean Monnet projects, ZNU, together with Lviv National University ranks third in Ukraine – after Sumy State University (11 projects) and Karazin Kharkiv National University (9 projects).
The almost four-hour webinar was full of important information. At first, the participants were consulted by Petro Krainik, Jean Monnet Curator of the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine and Iryna Sikorska, Head of the International Relations Department of Donetsk State University of Management, member of the National Team of Experts on Higher Education Reform (HERE team), Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Association of Teachers and Researchers of European Integration (APREI). They focused on the key points of the implementation of Jean Monnet projects: the requirements of the grant agreement the requirements for visualization and dissemination of project results. Iryna Sikorska drew special attention to the importance of synergy between partner projects of Jean Monnet Europeanists as such cooperation contributes to the further spread of European studies in Ukraine. Such synergy will be possible between ZNU project JMM EU-Indy and Erasmus+ KA2 project DESTIN, which has been implemented in ZNU since 2018. In fact, DESTIN inspired ZNU team to submit and win EU-Indy application.
In the second part of the webinar, experienced representatives of international departments and coordinators of current Jean Monnet projects shared their experience. Kostyantyn Kyrychenko, Deputy Vice-Rector for International Affairs of Sumy State University and Nina Barykina, Chief Accountant of Sumy State University, spoke about the peculiarities of financial support of grant activities within the framework of Jean Monnet projects, drawing attention to the need to fulfill their co-financing obligations specified in the declared budgets.
An experienced representative of ZNU, Associate Professor Olena Tupakhina a participant and coordinator of several TEMPUS, EMA2 and Erasmus + projects shared her experience with the webinar participants. Olena Volodymyrivna focused the participants' attention on the importance of project teams' participation in promotional events at the international level - in particular in the Erasmus+ Days, which took place this year at ZNU. A useful practice in a pandemic according to the speaker will be the creation of versions of Jean Monnet modules adapted to distance learning.
Currently Zaporizhzhia National University is implementing five Jean Monnet Erasmus+ projects (the sixth JMM EUROPROC project has already been completed) and two KA2 CBHE (Capacity Building in Higher Education) projects – DESTIN and MultiED.
