The Euro-Asian Academic Forum (EAAF)

The Euro-Asian Academic Forum is the outcome of several years of collaboration between the University of Ostrava's Faculty of Arts and universities from Eastern Europe and Asia. Inspired by its positive experience of this collaboration, the Faculty of Arts is keen to develop and build on these international links by organizing and coordinating a range of activities under the banner of the EAAF, which will offer support and infrastructure to all institutions involved. The University's Faculty of Arts can call on a wealth of experience from participating in various cross-border cooperation projects – including exchange schemes facilitating student mobility, student work placements, academic staff visits, and programmes developing teaching methods. The Faculty has also successfully participated in international programmes for many years, including the Comenius, Erasmus+ and Grundtvig schemes. As part of these programmes, the Faculty's students have benefited from the opportunity to travel on study visits to almost all EU member states. Thanks to this long-term experience with the structures and mechanisms involved in such student mobility programmes, the Faculty can offer a highly professional approach to inter-university cooperation with EU and non-EU countries alike.

The guiding concept of the EAAF is the need to support the exchange of research information and experience between EU and non-EU countries, to simplify the process of exchange for both information and people, and to offer support to students and academics from a range of Eastern European and Asian countries. Thanks to the Faculty's wide-ranging experience of such activities, the EAAF is able to minimize the administrative burden associated with student exchanges – both at the planning stage and during the stay itself. The EAAF opens the door to international students and academics keen to collaborate with institutions in the Czech Republic and the EU. Currently the range of programmes facilitating academic cooperation beyond the borders of the EU is very limited. One of the EAAF's goals is to provide an effective framework for establishing and fostering relations with non-EU universities. This will expand the range of opportunities for international studies and boost the prestige of all parties involved.

The EAAF supports long-term study stays. Participants are required to have a sufficient knowledge of either English or Czech; the main communicative language of the EAAF is Russian. Students from universities outside the Czech Republic can study in various Master's or doctoral programmes at several departments of the University's Faculty of Arts – either as full-time or part-time students. The EAAF forms an integral part of the Faculty of Arts; it currently serves as a central infrastructure point for students from Eastern European and Asian universities, and its future plans include the creation of mechanisms to provide financial support for mobility.

Updated: 19. 02. 2018