Increasing Dutch-Russian cooperation in higher education
A new report, presented at the Russia seminar in Amsterdam on 19 March, shows that institutional cooperation between Dutch and Russian higher education institutions is on the rise.
The report ‘Dutch-Russian cooperation in higher education’, which was co-produced by Nuffic Neso Russia, gives an overview of 97 existing partnerships and describes which typical issues arise in Dutch-Russian cooperation. The list includes 64 cooperation agreements with research universities and 33 with universities of applied sciences.
Student exchange
The majority of cooperation activities investigated for this report are student exchanges. Cooperation does not usually consist of only one activity. In two thirds of the collaboration efforts there are multiple activities. Often student exchange is realised in the early stages, with other activities such as joint research and double degree programmes added in a later phase.
Projects exceeding expectations
Around half of all the cooperation agreements are focused on maintaining the intensity and existence of current projects. Participants in the remaining agreements mentioned that they are either starting up or increasing their cooperation by initiating new activities or intensifying existing activities.
A large majority of Dutch respondents (89%) indicated that Russia is an important country for their university to develop ties with. Projects established to date meet or even exceed initial expectations and cooperation with Russian institutes is seen as fully comparable with cooperation with other countries.
According to the report 98% of people involved in currently-active cooperation agreements consider them to be a success.
Communication difficulties
The main problems within the cooperation activities are considered to be bureaucracy and delays in planning and communication. Language is also a problem, mainly when it concerns the availability of English-language programmes at Russian universities.
Additional cooperation agreements
This list of 97 agreements does not necessarily cover all existing cooperation agreements between Dutch and Russian education institutions. Please contact Nuffic Neso Russia if you know of an agreement that is not listed in the report.
Dutch higher education institutions can download the full report via the Nuffic market information website (login required).