A visit by a delegation from Cuba began today at South Ural State University, within which SUSU Rector Alexander Shestakov met with the Director of the Russian-Iberoamerican International Center (RIIC), Berenice Najera Cervantes and Rector of the University of Guantanamo, Alberto Turro Breff.
The Cuban colleagues came to SUSU to discuss the possibilities of international partnership, which includes organizing joint programs for academic exchange, student exchange programs, summer schools, and also introducing joint scientific projects and developments.
Today’s visit by the Cuban delegation to SUSU is a continuation of a visit by a delegation of the Union of Russian Rectors to Cuba, in which the delegations agreed on partnership and cooperation between Russian and Cuban universities.
“The University of Guantanamo is one of the largest, successfully developing technical universities in Cuba, so the suggestion of realizing joint research projects that the members of the delegation brought to us today is very serious for us. It is important that all of these projects are already being realized in Cuba. So, on the one hand, the goal of the visit by the Cuban delegation was discussing academic exchange, and on the other hand, discussing prospects of partnership between our universities in realizing existing research projects,” explained SUSU Rector Alexander Shestakov.
The Cuban side is also waiting for new horizons of partnership from the meeting at South Ural State University. We spoke with Rector of the University of Guantanamo, Alberto Turro Breff:
“From this visit, I expect the change to more closely get to know your university, since, first of all, this is one of the largest Russian universities, second, we already have experience working with Russian universities to realize various research projects, and we are interested in further developing this partnership, third, I’d really like to get to know the life at SUSU better, since this will let us understand what other areas we could partner in.”
Today the Cuban and Russian universities have a number of complementary research projects – this is the foundation for the path towards partnership in terms of organizing joint academic programs as well as in terms of organizing academic exchange and creating programs for continuing education for staff of both universities.
“In addition,” continues Alberto Turro Breff, “we think the possibilities of organizing student mobility between the universities are very promising. At this time we have experience organizing and holding summer schools for students from more than 20 countries, and we are ready to create the conditions necessary so that SUSU students also participated in them. We are also very interested in your developments in sport. Sport is very popular in Cuba, academic programs in sport are recognized around the world. More than 60% of the Cuban boxing team consists of students from the University of Guantanamo. So, I think that there will be something for your students to draw on and learn from us. In my opinion, your university has everything necessary for successful partnership and the development of international ties with the University of Guantanamo.”
The delegation from Cuba will continue its work at South Ural State University over two days, and throughout this time, they will visit a number of laboratories and scientific research centers at SUSU. The visit will wrap up tomorrow, September 19th, with a final meeting between the university rectors.
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