The transformation plan of the University of Korça/ Manastirliu: Model for regional universities

2024-10-05 15:56:00, Aktualitet CNA

The transformation plan of the University of Korça/ Manastirliu: Model

Minister of Education and Sports, Ogerta Manastirliu

The group of experts from the academic diaspora presented the development plan for the profiling of the University of Korça (UNIKO).

The plan was drawn up by three experts, academics from the diaspora. This MAS project, with the support of AADF, aims to turn the university into a regional center of excellence and scientific research by 2030.

The Minister of Education and Sports, Ogerta Manastirliu, in the presentation of UNIKO's development and profiling plan, emphasized the importance of this plan in the function of profiling and internationalization of the university, becoming a model for other regional universities.

"Today we open a new page for the University of Korça. Our ambition is to achieve all the objectives for the further development of the university by 2030, without removing anything from the existing values, but increasing them through the support that the government and the Ministry of Education and Sports will provide. We want to revitalize the regional universities, in order that the strategy "S3" (Smart Specialization Strategy) which is soon to be approved, which focuses on the development of the ecosystem of education with a focus on higher education, contains the objectives that we see reflected today in this UNIKO strategic plan. Thus, the University of Korça becomes the first pilot in the transformation of regional universities in the function of profiling and internationalization", said the Minister of Education and Sports, Ogerta Manastirliu.

For a year, three well-known Albanian academics from the diaspora, Dritan Agalliu (Ph.D. Columbia University), Mirjeta Beqiri (Ph.D. Gonzaga University), and Labtona Sado (Ph.D. Universita Roma Tre), have been working for development of the transformation plan of the University of Korça. They emphasized that the university has great potential to offer in the fields of agriculture, technology, tourism and cultural heritage. According to them, for the realization of this plan, five key points must be followed: empowering people, increasing research quality, education for the future of the region, internationalization and development of interdisciplinary research.

Minister of Education and Sports, Ogerta Manastirliu

The minister said that a model towards development and internationalization is that of the Agricultural University of Tirana.

"We reached a fantastic agreement with the Boku University of Vienna and the Agricultural University of Tirana, where we supported them with 2 million euros for the transformation plan of the Agricultural University of Tirana under the leadership of the Boku University of Vienna. It is anticipated that there will not only be exchanges of staff, students, support for doctorates, for the second cycle of Master's studies, where we will have co-leadership with the lecturers of the Boku University of Vienna, and also support for the development of scientific research units at this university . So, we have a model that we can also apply to the University of Korça", declared Manastirliu.

Following the efforts to modernize the education and research sector in Albania, the government has taken important steps to strengthen the legal basis of scientific research. One of the main initiatives is the new draft law on science and scientific research, which aims to create more opportunities for investment in this field, as well as to promote interdisciplinary cooperation and the development of open science.

"This week we will also approve the new law on science and scientific research in the Assembly, another window that opens for investments in science and scientific research and in open science. This law creates new instruments where we will have collaborations between sectors in the function of scientific research and open science", concluded Manastirliu./ CNA