Lithuania’s national LLP agency, the Education Exchanges Support Foundation (SMPF), in collaboration with its Estonian and Latvian counterparts (Archimedes Foundation and the Academic Programme Agency (APA)), has announced a series of yearly thematic monitoring seminars to enhance cooperation between business and academia in the Baltics. The first seminar entitled Erasmus student/staff placements in Baltic countries: enhancing cooperation between universities and enterprises will take place in Vilnius, on 27-28 November 2008, and is targeted at representatives of Latvian, Estonian, Polish, Finish and Swedish higher education institutions,  as well as at Lithuanian enterprises, SMEs associations and NGOs. The seminar aims at identifying strategies to increase the number of incoming students and staff to Baltic countries and at enhancing further cooperation between the Baltic enterprises and universities. In practical terms, the feasibility of establishing a “joint” database for the universities-enterprises partnership and other potential tools will be explored.

In the spirit of partnership, the 2009 seminar will be organised in Estonia, while the 2010 event is to take place in Latvia. The purpose of these events is to bring universities and enterprises closer together and to stress the benefits the Baltic countries obtain from the Erasmus Programme by teaming up with partners within the same region.

SMPF