RIAC Presentation

13:25, July 3, 2014

RIAC Days in UrFU started: staff members will have a chance to map out a plan of the university’s website and learn about promoting the university abroad via Internet

RIAC Days in UrFU started on July 1. The program includes the presentation of RIAC projects, seminar for entrepreneurs and training for members of the university staff.

RIAC activities are similar those of UrFU in many ways; they are also aimed at internationalization, promoting the image of the organization abroad and acquiring worldwide academic reputation. UrFU Rector Victor Koksharov is sure that UrFU cooperation with RIAC will make implementation of the program of Russian universities’ international competitiveness more effective.  

RIAC Program Director Ivan Timofeev told the audience about the main working areas of the council. He mentioned that it is important to promote universities not only for the purpose of solving the problems of educational services export, it is also important for strengthening and developing international relations.

“The students are a so-called soft power; studying in Russia, they start to understand its culture, traditions, so when they leave the country they have the first-hand knowledge about it. So those students can then promote education in Russia in their home countries”, says Ivan Timofeev.

RIAC programs are aimed at stimulating universities’ publishing activities and promoting those universities in the international arena. One of those programs is concerned with developing English versions of university sites. This program is aimed at internationalizing higher education and increasing the positions of the universities in ratings, for experts judge about a university by its site, and 40% of their ratings depends on the site.

During the training staff members will consider typical cases, determine the target groups and analyze the main sections of the site. Besides, they will map out a plan of the university’s website.

“We can excel the sites of foreign universities in content”, Ivan Timofeev says.

“I travel around Russia a lot and rediscover it every time. We have many developments nobody knows about, so we do not exist as an exporter of intellectual production for foreign countries.  People in Russia are very creative. We have potential but unfortunately we cannot reach our target audience. But as soon as we learn to present our achievements to the audience we are bound to surpass other universities”.

RIAC hold trainings in many Russian universities. The results of the work have already been presented in Northern Arctic Federal University and Saint Petersburg State University. Besides, Moscow State University and Moscow State Institute of International Relations are also working in this direction.