The 12^th Central European Infoday was held in Budapest on 10-11 November 2022. The event –organised jointly by Erasmus+ National Agencies (NAs) from the four neighbouring countries—focused mainly on the international dimension of the centralised programmes in Erasmus+ supporting cooperation in the higher education sector.

The cooperation of the national agencies – DZS/CZELO, OeAD, SAAIC and TPF – goes back to 2012, when the ECCE Mundus promotion project, coordinated by the Hungarian NA TPF started with the contribution of the Austrian and Slovak NAs by organising the first joint seminar. Likewise, a few years ago Czechia also joined the initiative. The informative events have continued successfully over the last few years in the form of virtual and physical conferences.

The Joint Infoday 2022 was opened by Laura Sinóros-Szabó, representative of the Hungarian Ministry for Innovation and Technology, who presented the Hungarian strategy on higher education focusing on international cooperation. Adrian Veale from DG EAC gave an online presentation on the latest policy updates in the Erasmus+ programme.

Invited guests from Armenia, Jordan and Uzbekistan presented possibilities of building partnerships with non-associated third countries (earlier: partner countries) and introduced successful cooperations. Ahmad Abu-El-Haija from NEO Jordan joined the event online, and the presence of Lana Karlova from NEO in Armenia, and Aziza Abdurakhmanova from the NEO in Uzbekistan gave an added-value to the event.

Besides the informative introduction of centralised actions, in-depth workshops offered practical aspects of project preparation and implementation on the second day of the event. The presentations of good practice examples of invited HEI representatives emphasized the key points, challenges, and successes of project proposals in the following actions which were followed by intensive discussions:

• Regarding Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters, Zsuzsanna Tarr (Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, HU) introduced a successful EMJM project called Danube AgriFood Master.
• In the workshop of Erasmus Mundus Design Measures, Jana Janderová (University of Pardubice, CZ) presented about FINDATA project.
• In the field of Capacity Building in Higher Education, Eva Penz (FH JOANNEUM University of Applied Sciences, AT) shared her experiences about the INTEC project.
• In Jean Monnet Chair action, Edina Zsigmond (National University of Public Service, HU) introduced the bEU project.

In addition to the abovementioned workshops, an overall presentation was held on other centralised activities such as the European University Alliances, Erasmus+ Virtual Exchanges and Alliances for Innovation, where participants shared and discussed their experiences with the programmes.

More information on the website of the event.

Photo by Tempus Public Foundation (TPF)

Photo by Tempus Public Foundation (TPF)