For the second year running, Queen Mary University of London hosted a Staff Training Week at the Mile End Campus from 17 – 21 June.
35 participants representing universities from 19 counties around the world attended the training week, which aimed to facilitate the exchange of innovative ideas between experts in the respective fields.
The week was financially supported through the Erasmus+ Programme, which is the European Union’s flagship exchange programme for students and staff.
The Global Opportunities Office organised the event and co-delivered it with three professional services teams at Queen Mary: Careers & Enterprise, Library services and Public Engagement.
During staff training weeks, participants share best practice through talks, workshops, focus groups and networking events. Following the event, attendees disseminate their ideas with their local and wider communities.
Wiebke Leugers, Erasmus+ Manager at Queen Mary, said: “The Staff Training Week opened doors of opportunities and allowed Queen Mary staff to engage with colleagues from our partner universities.
“The week facilitates the creation of new and the challenging of existing knowledge on an international level.”
Claudia Schlager from University of Tuebingen, Germany, participating in the Careers & Enterprise thematic track said: “It was interesting to see the challenges Queen Mary faces. The week has been so well organised, and we have had plenty of things we could see and learnt how Queen Mary works.
“As we are all a little bit concerned about Brexit, we greatly appreciate how closely our international offices coordinate.”
Mariana Grinblat-Pomerantz from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, joining colleagues in the Library thematic track said: “It has been nice to see different people from other universities and the challenges they face.
“A highlight for me was a meeting of librarians on the Whitechapel campus. It was a very exciting experience because we could talk about different libraries but discovered we have the same problems. We could then discuss different solutions for them.”
Irena Brezovic from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, participating in the Public Engagement thematic track said: “Everything has been very well organised, and I have felt very welcomed at Queen Mary. I have really enjoyed all the conversations we’ve had, and the small groups were great for sharing experiences.”
The event also shows participants what Queen Mary, the East End and London have to offer as a destination for their students and staff.
Irena said: “We saw a presentation by a member of the Muslim community, I was impressed by the amount of things he has done for the Muslim community in Mile End.
“I’m very happy to have had a chance to have heard from him because I’m from a country where we have many nationalities, refugees and immigrants so I found this very interesting.”
Mariana said: “Queen Mary is a very nice university. I’m from a university that is very similar to Queen Mary because we have a lot of international students.
“It was very nice to hear about the diversity and engagement at Queen Mary as I felt very connected with this subject.”
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