On 9-13 June 2025, the 14th Erasmus+ International Staff Week took place in Bialystok (Poland). Within the framework of the Erasmus+ academic mobility program KA171 “Mobility of Students and Staff of Higher Education” and at the invitation of Vice-Rector for International Cooperation of Bialystok University of Technology, Assoc. Prof. Dorota Anna Krawczyk, two representatives of Poltava Polytechnic took part in the event: Head of the Department of General Linguistics and Foreign Languages Alla Bolotnikova and Associate Professor of the Department of Architecture Buildings and Design Liudmyla Shevchenko.
The meeting agenda included experience exchange between international departments, participation in thematic sessions on partnership development, and the establishment of new forms of cooperation in higher education.
This is a regular event organized by Bialystok University of Technology for its international partners. This year's 14th Erasmus+ International Staff Week was attended by about 50 participants from 26 countries: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Fiji, Georgia, Guatemala, Spain, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Lithuania, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nepal, South Africa, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine and Zimbabwe.
The program of the event included:
- exchange of best practices and ideas (discussion of potential joint initiatives, events, programs);
- strengthening international communication skills;
- development of partnerships between universities around the world;
- presentation of their own scientific and professional achievements in various fields, including through lectures for students of Bialystok University of Technology and participants of the 14th Erasmus+ International Staff Week;
- cooperation with volunteers of My Green University project;
- exchange of cultural and historical heritage and traditions to promote intercultural understanding between different countries.
The first day of the event was marked by the greetings of the participants by the leadership of Bialystok University of Technology (BUT) and the administration of the city of Bialystok, and an introduction to Centre of History of BUT and its library. The scale of the event was strongly supported by the City Hall in the person of the Mayor himself, Tadeusz Truskolaski.
Besides, each participant of the 14th Erasmus+ International Staff Week was introduced through a short greeting from each of them.
The BUT Library is an integral part of Center for Modern Education, a new building on the campus. Together with the Library, it houses the Foreign Language Center and the Admissions and Training Support Center. The participants of the event got acquainted with the city of Bialystok and its main highlights during a Guided city tour. The city is the administrative center of the Podlaskie Voivodeship, surrounded by forests, and has a long history associated with the family of wealthy Polish magnates Branicki. In memory of this family, the Branicki Palace and Park Complex stands in the heart of the city and amazing landscape corners scattered throughout the city.
The main event of the second day was the Cultural stands and exploring Polish cultural and historical environment. Cultural stands are a mini-fair of academic exchange where all 26 countries participating in the 14th Erasmus+ International Staff Week had the opportunity to present their countries comprehensively. Ukraine was represented by three higher education institutions at this event: National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”, Lviv Polytechnic and National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”. The Ukrainian table turned out to be the most colorful, rich in information, and frequently visited by International Staff Week participants, volunteers of My Green University project, and students of Bialystok University of Technology.
Scientists of Poltava Polytechnic established friendly relations with the participants of the event, in particular from the Republic of Moldova, Guatemala, Armenia, etc.
The cultural theme of the day ended with an introduction to Polish culture, language, and traditions. This event was held in the form of communication and monitoring of the results in the form of a test on knowledge of Polish culture and traditions.
The third day was the most important for all participants of the International Staff Week, as a number of events took place at the university itself: lectures-presentations by the teaching staff of the international event, workshops by the administrative staff, acquaintance with the university’s faculties, their scientific, methodological and material and technical bases.
Associate Professor Liudmyla Shevchenko gave lectures for the participants of the 14th Erasmus+ International Staff Week, volunteers of My Green University project, and the academic staff of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences. They concerned the peculiarities of landscape and spatial organization of Ukrainian cities, the role of the existing topographic basis, the established traditions of spatial and landscape planning, and the further development of cities. The city of Poltava, its expressive topographic points, including Instytutska Hora, the location of National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”. The associate professor also spoke about the structure and peculiarities of studying Architecture and Urban Planning at Poltava Polytechnic. During this difficult period for the country, the university became a safe environment for students to study and live in with equipped shelters, a point of invincibility, and a volunteer headquarters.
At the end of the lecture, a meeting of like-minded people took place – Liudmyla Shevchenko and Dorota Gawryluk, PhD, Eng. Arch. from the Department of Sustainable Construction and Building Systems (Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences). The colleagues discussed creative plans, current opportunities and options for further cooperation both in the field of landscape architecture and design and within the Erasmus+ program. This meeting of colleagues at Bialystok University of Technology was continued later in an informal form during a visit to interesting and exemplary locations in Bialystok from the point of view of landscape design.
In general, during the international mobility, Liudmyla Shevchenko presented her own scientific and professional achievements in the field of architecture and urban planning, in particular, on the topics “System of green spaces of Ukrainian cities”, “Peculiarities of the landscape and spatial organization of the city of Poltava (Ukraine)”, “Peculiarities of training future architects at the National University ”Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” – from bachelor to postgraduate student”.
The meetings of colleagues from different countries were interesting: Guatemala, Spain, Poland.
A great ending to this working day was the involvement of the participants of the 14th Erasmus+ International Staff Week in Plantings – planting plants on the University’s territory as part of the My Green University project. This project is implemented by the University’s International Relations Offices with the support of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences. In 2024, the university received the European Solidarity Corps Quality Label, a certificate issued by the National Agency of the Erasmus+ Program and the European Solidarity Corps, which allows the university to accept volunteers from around the world. This event contributed to the emergence of international landscape compositions, in particular, the Ukrainian-Lithuanian one!
Surely, during her mobility, Liudmyla Shevchenko was interested in the Faculty of Architecture at Bialystok University of Technology, where she got acquainted with students’ coursework, areas of their creative and scientific activities, teaching methods and techniques that are actively used in the educational process.
The fourth day of the international event began with a presentation of projects by Bialystok University of Technology. And continued with an introduction to the city of Supraśl, its Orthodox monastery complex and the Museum of Icons. An interesting and unexpected bonus of the tour was a visit to the European bison reserve, a kind of continuation of the environmental focus of the university’s volunteer activities as part of the sustainable development strategy and My Green University program.
The academic mobility of Erasmus+ KA171 at Bialystok University of Technology of Associate Professors of Poltava Polytechnic Alla Bolotnikova and Liudmyla Shevchenko ended with the award of certificates to the participants.
A pleasant bonus from Bialystok University of Technology was Alla Bolotnikova’s victory in the quest for knowledge of Polish culture and traditions.
The participants of the academic mobility program gained an extraordinary experience of international cooperation, which they will be happy to use in the future in their research and educational work at their home university. Incredible positive impressions gave them a “boost of energy” in the research field and inspired them to come up with interesting creative solutions in creative architectural design.
Sincere gratitude to the Erasmus+ coordinators from Polish side, Dorota Anna Krawczyk, Magdalena Kadłubowska and Agnieszka Gniazdowska, for the opportunity to take advantage of this mobility. Special thanks to Anna Pavelieva, the mobility coordinator from Ukrainian side, who, thanks to the full support of President of National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” Volodymyr Onyshchenko and Rector Olena Filonych, organized the participation in this program in a high-quality and fast way.
Recently, a scientist of Poltava Polytechnic has completed an academic mobility in Germany as part of an international environmental project, a representative of Poltava Polytechnic took part in a forum on historical education of the Council of Europe: A Philological View of the Dialogue on Memory and Democracy, Kseniia Verhal took part in an event on academic mobility in STEM fields of higher education; a postgraduate student of Poltava Polytechnic won the second place at a prestigious international competition in Vienna; a delegation of Polytechnic teachers took part in the Erasmus+ academic mobility program at the Romanian partner university Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad; Associate Professor of Poltava Polytechnic Iryna Chernetska took part in the prestigious IVLP exchange program, students of Polytechnic shared their impressions of the Erasmus+ internship at ISCAP (Portugal), and the delegation of Polytechnic took part in the academic mobility under the Erasmus+ program within the ISCAP International Week, which was held at Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto (ISCAP).
It should be noted that Poltava Polytechnic teachers can participate in academic mobility programmes and internships, and students of Poltava Polytechnic have the opportunity to study abroad under the grant programmes of credit academic mobility for a semester or a whole academic year at the leading universities of Austria, Greenland, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, and the Czech Republic.
For more information on current internship, teaching and academic mobility programmes abroad, please contact the International Relations Department (room 213-C, interoffice@nupp.edu.ua) or the Coordinator of International Cooperation of National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” – Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation Anna Kostiantynivna Pavelieva (email: kunsite.zi@gmail.com, phone: +3-8-(095)-91-08-192).
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National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
