LUDOVIKA UNIVERSITY OF PUBLIC SERVICE

Two delegations from South-Africa visited UPS during the Summer

In the framework of Erasmus ICM Mobility, a total of seven colleagues from two South African universities came to our university in July 2022. In addition to the official meetings at the dean's and deputy dean's level, there were also professional consultations, research and teaching methodology discussions, and project planning with the instructors and researchers of the four faculties of UPS. These were organized by department head Dr Ágoston Restás, associate professor Dr Ágnes Jenei and associate professor Dr Szabolcs Pásztor, also taking into account the professional preferences of the guests.

The University of the Free State (UFS) located in Bloemfontein has been Erasmus partner of UPS for almost ten years, while the Durban University of Technology (DUT) is a new one. In the initial cooperation between the disaster prevention institutes (thanks to Dr Ágoston Restás, head of the Institute of Disaster Management - Department of Fire Protection and Rescue Operation Management), FPGIS instructors (Ágnes Jenei, Szabolcs Pásztor) also got involved. Although the aim of the Erasmus mobility programs, in a narrow sense is education or training, but personal meetings and the exchange of professional experience also provide an opportunity to develop research and training development programs.

Recognizing this opportunity, on behalf of the new Erasmus partner, DUT, the dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences, which has ten thousand students, prof. Fulufhelo Godfrey Netswera also participated in the mobility program. Besides him, the head of the Department of Public Management and Economics, Prof. Pillay Strinivaasan Soondrasan, the head of the Disaster Management Training, prof. Maliga Reddy, and from the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics, the head of the IT Lab, prof. Asmal Ebrahim participated. On behalf of the "old" Erasmus partner, UFS, the newly appointed head of the Disaster Management Training and Education Center for Africa (DiMTEC), prof. Abiodun Ogundeji and Prof. Johannes Belle and prof. Tlou Raphela came to us, partially overlapping with the representatives of Durban.

Dr Réka Varga, Dean of FPIGS, and Dr Zachar Péter, Deputy Dean responsible for international affairs, welcomed the members of the two delegations to discuss each other's research, training and internationalization strategies. The guests also met István Jakab, the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, who received them in the Parliament and assured them of his support for professional cooperation as the President of the East-Central European Africa Knowledge Center.

The aforementioned collaborations would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support of Dr Attila Horváth, Ambassador of South Africa, and Ambassador Dr Ferenc Robák, for which we would like to thank them.

 

Text and photos: Ágnes Jenei