Cooperation with ITMO University grows

The partnership between ITMO University in St. Petersburg (State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics) and the Chair of integrated management systems at HSZG, which has been in place since July 2016, is bearing fruit. After a student from Zittau spent a highly successful semester abroad at ITMO University during the 2016–17 winter semester, we were able to welcome Vasilisa Dobrynina, the first Russian student, for an exchange semester at our university in the 2017 summer semester:

“It was truly the best experience I’ve ever had in my life. I’m so grateful to the professors who made this possible and offered me courses in English. I was happy the entire time I was in Zittau, and I’m still happy and proud to be part of this program and university and to be at the start of the new international partnership between Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz and ITMO University. Thank you, Jana Brauweiler, Anke Zenker-Hoffmann, Markus Will, and Bernd Delakowitz—you’re a perfect team and wonderful people! I look forward to seeing everyone in Saint Petersburg!”

At ITMO University, Vasilisa is studying in the “Environment, Energy, Occupational and Health Safety Systems” degree programme and has taken modules with us on “Quantitative Environmental Assessment of Products,” “Software Applications” (Umberto), “Energy Quest,” and “Interculturality.” She also completed a study-integrated internship at the Löbau-based company “ULT AG.” Both the modules and the internship were conducted in English, which was both a challenge and an opportunity for everyone involved. A big thank you goes to the instructors Prof. Dr. Bernd Delakowitz, Anke Zenker-Hoffmann, Markus Will, Prof. Dr. Klaus Werner, and Frank Schneider, as well as Dr. Stefan Jakschik, CEO of ULT AG. Vasilisa completed all her examination components with very good and good grades and is now continuing her studies at ITMO University.

Vasilisa’s program director and Dean of the “Industrial Ecology” faculty at ITMO, Prof. Dr. Olga Sergienko, visited HSZG in June 2017. The purpose of her visit was to finalize the details of the dual-degree program combining the degree programmes “Industrial Ecology and Cleaner Production” (ITMO) and “Integrated Management Systems”/“Integrated Management” (HSZG). The first students will be able to enroll in this program starting in the 2017–18 winter semester. As early as the 2018 summer semester, we will welcome the first student from St. Petersburg to our university as part of the dual-degree program.

To coordinate further academic cooperation, representatives from the “integrated management systems” degree programme will travel to St. Petersburg in mid-September of this year for an “Intensive Week” on the topic of “Resource and Energy Efficient Management.” Together with students from ITMO University, Kostroma State University (another HSZG partner university offering a dual-degree programme in the “integrated management” degree programme), and interested international students, academic collaboration will be deepened through lectures, seminars, business simulations, and company visits.

With 11,600 students (including 1,400 students from 70 countries), ITMO is one of the top three universities in Russia and ranks 56th in international rankings (for more information, see en.ifmo.ru).

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the team at the Student Services & International Affairs division for their organizational and administrative support in launching the dual-degree program and for facilitating student and faculty mobility. These initiatives have been and continue to be funded, among other sources, by the ERASMUS+ program (mobility with partner countries) and the DAAD’s “Eastern Partnerships” program.