Interest in Russian education grows with each year: the schedules of ITMO University’s three delegates, Maria Didkovskaia, Polina Petrusha, and Elizaveta Menis, were full a whole two weeks before the event.

As Polina Petrusha notes, one of this year’s highlights for her was the quality of communication. In addition to working at the University’s booth, she also delivered a report about her experience in attracting talented youth to Russian universities using the toolset of online competitions at ITMO University.

“This has been my first conference of its kind,” says Elizaveta Menis, the coordinator of ITMO’s Fellowship and Professorship Program. “The participants’ genuine interest in Russian education has been a pleasant surprise: people had constantly come up to our booth with questions, and we had to squeeze in the time between meeting and plan our time very carefully so that one of us would always be able to answer our international colleagues’ questions.”

Despite the conference’s Asian venue, many European countries had been represented by massive booths of their own: the French higher education pavilion had been the biggest; among the other leaders were Germany and the Czech Republic. A staple of the event, Australian universities were also extensively represented. They expressed their interest in sending their students to ITMO University’s winter schools, as Russian winter falls on the time of summer holidays in the southern hemisphere.

Universities participating in the 5-100 Project are represented at APAIE, as well as at similar European or US conferences (EAIE and NAFSA), by a massive common area that stands out among the others. This helps increase the visibility of Russian education and the Russian universities’ involvement in international educational processes. As the delegates point out, even a few years ago it was not likely to meet any Russian speakers at these global events that gather up to 11,000 participants. Today, inviting the representatives of Russian universities to participate in panel discussions or joint reports has become an established tradition.

We would also like to note that in May 2019, ITMO University will take part in the United States’ largest higher education conference, NAFSA 2019, to be held on May 26-31 in Washington, D.C.

The International Office, ITMO University