BME succeeded in increasing its international visibility, strengthening ties with numerous strategic partners, negotiating new Erasmus collaborations, widely promoting the 2nd Erasmus Staff Week program, and meeting EELISA partners in person. This is how the participation of the two-member delegation from the Directorate of International Relations can be summarized at the professional higher education fair and conference organized by the European Association for International Education (EAIE).
EAIE is the most significant community of European and international higher education professionals. Its annual forum provides an opportunity for professional dialogue and for presenting educational and mobility trends. The 33-year-old conference is the largest event of its kind in the EU, with
more than 200 exhibitors from over 100 countries this year in Gothenburg, Sweden – including universities, service providers, professional associations, consultancy companies, governments, and NGOs.
An important takeaway from the participants is that presence at the fair is indispensable: in the European higher education community, those who attend are the ones who count. BME plans to participate in next year’s event in Glasgow as well, given its strategic importance for the university’s internationalization. Face-to-face meetings create an effective platform to gather direct feedback from partners and to explore opportunities for expanding cooperation. A total of 10 Hungarian institutions were represented, showcasing the Hungarian higher education sector together and boosting its international visibility and attractiveness.
| At the conference, the ESCI Champion Awards granted by the European Commission were also presented, and BME received one from Hungary. This title is awarded to higher education institutions playing an outstanding role in digital projects linked to the European Student Card Initiative. BME earned the Erasmus Without Papers Award through the full implementation of paperless administration in the Erasmus+ program.
A related project kick-off seminar brought together representatives of the 33 award-winning universities (pictured below) to get to know one another and share experiences to support the European Commission’s work in preparing for the next Erasmus period. Among the proposals were the development of digital Learning Agreement templates for non-study mobilities, the digitalization of grant agreement templates, and the extension of the bilateral agreement digital platform to partners outside the EU. The need to develop a multilateral agreement template to manage mobilities implemented by European University Alliances was also raised. |
Each year the conference conveys a different central message; this year it was “Go create,” encouraging participants to find new partners and implement joint projects. The opening plenary speech was delivered by Melati Wijsen, a 24-year-old Indonesian climate activist and changemaker, whose main message was that we must act together for change. She expanded on the original slogan to highlight this point.
Go create and be curious!
At the closing plenary, Swedish writer and journalist Andreas Ekström emphasized the use of organic artificial intelligence, placing people and acquired knowledge at the center, and stressing the importance of critical thinking in using new technologies.
Among the professional sessions, the presentation by the Erasmus coordinators of the Universities of Amsterdam and Copenhagen deserves mention (“Moving beyond GPA: Rethinking student selection for study abroad programmes”), which introduced a new method for allocating exchange places. The core idea is that not only the top-performing students should receive the best opportunities. Instead, candidates for a given institution are ranked, and then places are allocated by lottery, applying the principle of equal treatment – an approach that significantly increased student participation.
At the Study in Hungary booth hosted by the Tempus Public Foundation, BME’s representatives held substantial discussions with several partner universities, including Delft University of Technology, Cardiff University, National University of Singapore (the most popular non-EU host institution among BME students), Zurich University of Applied Sciences, University of York, and ETH Zurich.
Several other institutions also expressed interest in cooperation, such as OSTIM University (Turkey), ECE (France), ECAM – Brussel Engineering School (Belgium), as well as universities from Ukraine, India, Kosovo, Malaysia, China, and South Korea.
Bíbor Klekner, Dorottya Szijártó
