On June 28th, the final event of the KA107-2019 Erasmus+ student and staff mobility project hosted by the University of Salento was successfully held online. Representatives of its three partner institutions, namely the School of Management of Jinan University, the University of Vlorë (Albania), and the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, including the project coordinators and the participating students and faculty, as well as Associate Professor Sebastiano Cattaruzzo, a researcher from Ca' Foscari University, were invited to the event. Jun Qi, Assistant Dean of SoM, and Yongli Tang, Professor of the Industrial Technology Economics and Management Research Center of SoM, with the SoM exchange students of the project, attended the event.

Participants from different countries and institutions

At the event, Prof. Rosita D'Amora, Pro-Vice Chancellor for International Affairs of University of Salento, warmly welcomed the guests, and the representatives of the three partner institutions talked about their perspectives on the implementation of the project. All of them agreed that in the context of the Covid-19, the promotion of this project has opened up a new pattern of international exchange among the institutions. In this session, Jun Qi mentioned that since the pandemic, the exchange program of the School of Management was basically suspended, and this project was the only one that could be carried out successfully. This is one of the important achievements of the School regarding internationalization in the past two years, and this achievement is hard-earned with the willingness and unremitting efforts of both sides for promoting international exchange.

Afterwards, Prof. Claudio Petti, project coordinator at the University of Salento, gave a brief overview of the two-year-implementation of the project, and invited Associate Prof. Sebastiano Cattaruzzo to share his research on What makes territories attractive to international students flows. The study showed that students prefer programs with longer study periods and diversification of fields, and that regions with innovation hubs, high level institutions and proximity to metropolitan areas are more popular among students. The results of this study generated a lot of interest and lively discussions.

Claudio Petti reviewing the whole project

In the next session, participants from different institutions shared their experiences in this project. In this session, Prof. Yongli Tang shared his experience of his recent online course Technology Roadmap: Product and Technology Development Planning for students from the University of Salento, and Prof. Gianluca Elia from the University of Salento shared his experience of the recent online course Digital Transformation for SoM students. Both professors mentioned that the online teaching activity was a new experience, and it turned out to be satisfactory concerning teacher-student interaction and overall teaching effectiveness. They were also inspired by the students for the understanding of the course content, which laid a good foundation for future innovation in the teaching. In addition, Pan Bo, one of the SoM students who physically exchanged to the University of Salento last year, also shared this special and valuable experience, and expressed his gratitude to both schools for providing this exchange opportunity.

Prof. Gianluca Elia sharing teaching mobility experience

Pan Bo sharing study and life in Italy

At the end of the event, a video taken by the exchange students during their stay in Italy was shown in the meeting. As Prof. Claudio Petti said, the successful closing of this project does not mean the end of our cooperation, but the beginning of a new round of cooperation.

The KA107-2019 Erasmus+ Mobility Project between the School of Management and the University of Salento was launched in May 2020 after the signing of the agreement and took two years to conclude. At the beginning, the project was stalled due to Covid-19. However, thanks to the determination and efforts of both parties to promote the project, the School successfully sent 10 students and 1 teacher outbound either online or offline, received one teacher and will receive 1 staff member inbound. At present, the application for a new round of Erasmus+ mobility project has been sent, and both schools are full of willingness and confidence to further deepen cooperation and promote the continued development of the exchange programs.

Video taken by the exchange students during their stay in Italy