2nd Newsletter of the International Relations Office of HMU – July & August 2020

by | Jul 30, 2020 | newsletter

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Approval of the ATHENA European University for Funding 

On the 10th of July, the European Commission informed us that the ATHENA (Advanced Technology Higher Education Network Alliance) project was approved for funding on the frame of the European University call. Hellenic Mediterranean University is part of the consortium and was leading the project from its inception. The main objective of the ATHENA project is the unification of the undergraduate, postgraduate, and research and administration activities along seven European Universities using mainly blended mobility actions. For the first three years of funding (7.500.000 Euros), all the actions will be focused on the Engineering school of the HMU and more particular in the Departments of Electronic Engineering (Chania Campus) and Electronic & Computer Engineering (Heraklion Campus). Beyond this period all the policies should be transferred to the rest of the HMU Departments. The scientific coordinator of the ATHENA project for HMU site is Associate Professor Konstantinos Petridis (Academic Head of the International Office of HMU & Department of Electronic Engineering, HMU).
Congratulations were received from the Ministry of Education – please check. All the funded projects can be found here

More information about the ATHENA alliance can be found here: http://www.athenaeuropeanuniversity.eu/
At the beginning of September, Dr. Petridis will present ATHENA to all  HMU Academics to communicate the implementation of the project in HMU.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator border_width=”2″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][u_heading]Hellenic Meditteranean University participates in the IAPP Greece Initiative [/u_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

HMU and its IRO office (Dr. Konstantinos Petridis and Mrs. Gloria Vega) coordinate the collaboration of HMU with U.S. Higher Institutions on the frame of the IAPP (please check: https://www.iie.org/Programs/International-Academic-Partnership-Program/IAPP-Greece/Participant-Portal). The Hellenic  Ministry of Education considers the collaboration with US Institutions a high priority. The IRO office has already identified topics that satisfy the US Institutions declared areas of collaboration and Dr. Petridis has already initiated discussions with.the respective heads of the US International Offices in the following Institutions: 

  1. York College of Pennsylvania (topics: Tourism & Hospitality, Nursing, and Engineering)
  2. Rudgers University (topics: Nursing (Health Professions) and Nutrition)
  3. George Mason University (topics: Social Work, Tourism& Management and Education (Teaching Science))
  4. South Alabama University (Tourism and STEM studies)
During these initial discussions (1st round) we have also discussed the possibility of some joint actions such as:
  1. Sign an MoU
  2. Organize webinars in commonly interested topics
  3. Contribution of lecture sessions in existing modules in HMU and in US Institution curricula (and postgraduate)
  4. Design and run joined modules in the above topics
  5. Organize summer schools in Crete for the US students in the aforementioned topics
  6. Submit an Erasmus KA107 proposal to financially support staff and student mobilities between HMU and the US Institutions (January 2020)
Strict timelines have been discussed for the implementation of the above. The next step is to engage the respective HMU colleagues with the respective counter parties in the US to design actions (2,3,4, 5) with the full support of HMU IRO. More information will be provided in September in our third newsletter

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][u_heading]The Erasmus Week 2020 will be hosted by the Department of Electronic Engineering of HMU, in Chania, Crete [/u_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”137142″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

The Department of Electronic Engineering and the International Relations Office of the HMU will host and organize respectively the 7th International Week in Chania, Crete from the 11th to the 16th of October 2020.

The main topics of the International Week will be:

  • Modern Topics (Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, 5G Communications) on the Profession of an Electronics Engineer
  • Soft and Professional Skills Development
  • Teaching Science
  • Internationalization Actions

The lecturers will be experts on the above topics and will come from the HMU International Network (KA103 and KA107 programs).

More information can be found here. The event can be followed face to face and remotely. Please contact Dr. Konstantinos Petridis (cpetridis@hmu.gr) and Mrs. Eva Menegaki (evamen@hmu.gr) to register for this event. More than 100 participants have already registered and reconfirmed their participation.

The Department of Electronic Engineering and in parallel with the International Week organizes the 2nd International Symposium in Electronic Engineering, Information Technology, and Education (EEITE2020). There no fees to participate in this event and if you wish to register please follow this link 

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][u_heading]The HMU KA2 Erasmus Projects [/u_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

The Hellenic Meditteranean University is very active in the KA2 Actions on the frame of the Erasmus Project. Actually is the first and until now the only Hellenic Higher Educational Institution that has been awarded the silver medal by the European Commission for ‘the quality and quantity of the implemented Intensive Programs’ (mainly in the engineering sector). So is not surprising that it is considered in European and National level as one of the most active Institutions in attracting funds from the KA2 Erasmus Plus Actions. One of the purposes of our newsletter is to disseminate these actions in the local HMU community, in national and also international level through our partners.

In this newsletter, we will start with the Capacity Building Projects for Higher Education, one of the flagships of the Erasmus Plus Projects.  The HMU was the 1st Hellenic Mediterranean University that has coordinated such a project in 2017 and this was highlighted by the Hellenic National Agency (IKY). Since then, the HMU coordinates three Capacity Building Projects (in renewable energy sources, in nanotechnology and in Mathematics) and participates in another one. For more information about these projects please click here

Please feel free to contact our coordinators to establish collaborations with them and to check how you can use the educational materials produced along these projects

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The HMU – IRO office would like to thank all the colleagues who have offered modules and training programs to our incoming students. Particular thanks to the colleagues that offered their teaching services (with online regular teaching sessions) during the pandemic and more precisely many thanks to:
  1. Christos Floros (Accounting Department)
  2. Argyroula Kalaitazaki (Social Work)
  3. Ioannis Kaliakatsos (Electronic Engineering)
  4. Ioannis Chatzakis (Electronic Engineering)
  5. Nikolaos Petrakis (Electronic Engineering)
  6. Gareth Owens (International Relations Office Academy)
  7. George Papadourakis (Electrical Engineering)
  8. Thanasis Malamos (Electrical Engineering)
  9. Dimitrios Kollaros
  10. Konstantinos Pascalidis (Agriculture)
  11. Dimitrios Micahilidis
We hope that we have not forgotten to mention anyone. Please forgive us if we did not mention your name and we will make it up in one of our next newsletters

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The HMU IRO Academy in the period from the 1st of June  to the 30th of June has launched two surveys in order to identify the following:
  1. Incoming Erasmus students satisfaction for their experience in HMU
  2. HMU Academic Community requests from the HMU IRO Office

The main findings per survey are summarised below, per survey:

Incoming Students Satisfaction

  • Very satisfied from the IRO – Office services especially during the lockdown period
  • Quiet satisfied with the received lectures and training programs and how supportive the HMU was to them
  • The main reason to pick up HMU was prior to good statements from other students have visited the HMU and also because of the location
  • They would like to have a bigger variety of offered lectures and more interaction with the Greek students
HMU Academics Requests from the HMU IRO 
  • To organize more info – days regarding staff mobilities
  • To plan and organize more International Weeks per School’s topic academic interests
  • To sign bilateral agreements with a deeper educational & research impact
Presentations regarding the results of our survey can be found here

[/vc_column_text][vc_zigzag][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”137614″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]The HMU – IRO Office welcomes Dr. Kleio Koutra as one of its members of staff.  Klio is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and she is very active on the Internationalization of HMU studies and programs[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_zigzag][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”137003″ img_size=”medium”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Dr. Gareth Owens (Director of the International Relations Office of the HMU) speaks of his experiences in the office for the last 25 years 
“Expect the Unexpected”
Dear Students and Colleagues,
I was asked to say a few words about my 32 years on Crete, ‘epae’, and 25 Years in the International Relations Office at TEI-HMU. I originally came in 1988 for 6 months as a Post-Graduate Student at Knossos and was studying Mycenaean Linear B (c.1400-1200 BC) in Heraklion Archaeological Museum. I stayed a little bit longer and those 6 months lasted 6 years (including a year back at UCL teaching Mycenaean Linear B). In 1994 I came to work at the Erasmus Office at TEI of Heraklion (TEI-Crete, HMU) and also in the same year got married. It was a quarter of a century ago when I first came to TEI looking for a Career on Crete and was fortunate enough to meet Prof. Markos Karanastasis who asked me if I wanted to work in the Erasmus Office, and the rest, as they say, is history. For 25 years now my life, both personally and professionally, is international and interdisciplinary. It is a journey that I am still enjoying on Crete, on my very own Odyssey towards Ithaki in the Labyrinth of Life. I would advise people, students, and staff, to take every opportunity, to travel through both time and space.
Erasmus has been and continues to be a life-long eye-opening experience for me, both personally and professionally. Every day is different at the Erasmus Office, with my trilingual international social worker colleague of 25 years when you are working in International Education and Research. At HMU we are now offering Education and Research at a Local, National, European and International level. The chemistry of every class and intake is different by its very nature and biodiversity is huge amongst students and staff from Universities all over the world. I have made friends from all over the world and I still enjoy sharing Crete with our visitors, both Students, and University teachers. I do not now travel as much as I used to, I use my free time for reading and writing, but my advice to all is to enjoy as much ‘Academic Travel’ as possible, meeting interesting people in interesting places and sharing interesting ideas.
Along with the Erasmus Office and Family, I also did a Ph.D. at Athens University for a decade on the ‘Structure and Nature of the Minoan Language’ (c.2000-1400 BC), followed by 4 years developing my website https://www.teicrete.gr/daidalika/ and re-publishing 50 Collected Academic Articles on the Scripts and Languages of Minoan and Mycenaean Crete (c.2000-1200 BC) in the volume ‘Labyrinth’. In 2008 I attended a meeting in London to discuss the (in)famous Phaistos Disk (c.1700 BC) and have now been collaborating for 12 years with John Coleman, Professor of Phonetics at Oxford University, on trying to “Read” the Phaistos Disk, the Enigma of Minoan Crete. Our results are published on the HMU Daidalika Website. For the last 6 years, I have been trying to provide an interpretation of this Minoan Religious Inscription, with 242 signs in total (45 different) constituting 61 words, 18 sentences on both sides of the Phaistos Disk. Two years ago I offered my attempt at interpretation, to “Understand” the Phaistos Disk, at the National Research Centre in Athens. Since then and for the last two years I have been reworking my research, within a scientific framework, as a “Poetic Translation” of the Phaistos Disk, which will be presented in Athens this winter.
In addition to Family, Erasmus, and Research, I have also started writing my own poetry, something which I never imagined myself doing a quarter of a century ago

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We wish you to be safe and enjoy your summer vacation time. We will be back in September with our # 3 Newsletter[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]