As part of the VIRTUS project, Institute for the Development of Education and the J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek are organizing the international conference "Scholarships.info: The Role of Scholarships In Raising Academic Mobility". The conference will take place in Osijek, Croatia, on September 29-30, 2005.
In line with the main project objective, the main goal of the conference is to promote the importance of scholarships as a factor that contributes to raising academic mobility and the democratization of higher education. By providing financing for higher education, scholarships enable a more merit-based access to higher education, thus contributing to the respect of the human right to higher education. At the same time, scholarships help increase the mobility of students, teachers and researchers within the European Higher Education Area and beyond, and make for the creation of higher quality programs in higher education.
The conference workshops and presentations will focus on:
- Presenting and promoting the web portal www.stipendije.info. Conference participants will learn to work with the portal and become familiar with its content, purpose and potential.
- Providing a professional development opportunity for higher education professionals, aimed at the use of information technologies in education and educational advising. Conference participants will attend workshops on how to use information technologies in education and educational advising. Offering better insight into www.stipendije.info, as well as similar web portals, the workshops will enable higher education professionals and scholarship-awarding institutions to provide a better service to their students.
- Promoting the importance of the involvement of all sectors, as well as inter-sector cooperation, in the creation and administration of scholarship programs. Representatives of different sectors (universities as well as the public, civil and corporate sector) will speak about their respective efforts in increasing academic mobility in the European Higher Education Area by offering scholarship programs. The aim of the presentations is to stress the importance of the involvement of all sectors in the creation and administration of scholarship programs. Apart from raising academic mobility, such a form of cooperation would enable a more merit-based access to higher education programs, which in turn would bring about a greater number of higher-educated citizenry in Croatia. On the other hand, the cooperation would establish a stronger link between the universities and the labor market, making sure that the programs offered at the universities better cater to the needs of their community.
Conference participants will include representatives of "VIRTUS" project partner institutions, as well as those of Croatian and international institutions from all sectors involved in higher education: Croatian and foreign universities, student organizations, ministries, foundations, non-governmental organizations, the corporate sector, diplomatic posts and cultural centers of different countries in Croatia.
The Conference is part of the "VIRTUS – Virtual Academic Information Service: Scholarships.info" project, financed through the TEMPUS SCM program of the European Commission.
Conference documents
- Conference documents – consortium members (ZIP, 170 KB)
- Conference documents – participants outside the consortium (ZIP, 170 KB)
- Osijek City Map (JPG, 330 KB)
Conference evaluations
- Evaluation Report (PDF, 130 KB)
- Evaluation Summary (PDF, 20 KB)