On 26 October  2021, around 30 colleagues from Czech higher education institutions participated in the most recent webinar of the STUDY IN ACAdemy series co-organised by ACA and the Czech National Agency for International Education and Research (DZS), ACA’s Czech member organisation. The Webinar #8 addressed the topic of Building staff commitment to internationalisation, with experts Marina Casals Sala, Director of International Relations at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain and Daniela Trani, Managing Director
of the Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) delivering the keynote inputs.

Staff involvement is one of the key factors directly influencing the degree of success of internationalisation efforts at institutional level. At the same time, developing an internationalisation culture and building a critical mass of staff supportive and actively engaging in international cooperation activities remains one of the biggest challenges for higher education institutions wishing to push their internationalisation agendas further. As a bespoke training programme, the webinar offered to participants insights about key ways of fostering commitment to internationalisation from administrative and academic staff, while supporting them in developing the knowledge and skills necessary for this process.

The webinar concluded with two parallel sessions, gathering feedback from participants about their current practices and a reflection round with the two experts, DZS and ACA staff.

About STUDY IN ACAdemy series

The STUDY IN ACAdemy series was designed to facilitate a common learning experience for ACA, DZS and the Czech HEIs, leveraging on ACA’s in-house expertise in international higher education and its wider network of expert contacts. The series tackles a wide range of topics related to international higher education that are of interest, during COVID times and beyond, considering both the local contexts and global trends.