TOMSK, Dec 3 – RIA Tomsk. University city of the
digital era, digital education technologies and creation of an urban
environment necessary for the development of sought-after professionals –
these topics have become leading at the International Forum of
University Cities, which is taking place these days on the online
platform of Tomsk State University (TSU).
Earlier it was
reported that TSU opened on Wednesday, December 2, the Fifth
International Forum of University Cities, dedicated to the challenges
that digital transformation poses for modern education and science. The
organizers, in addition to TSU, are the regional administration, the
French Embassy in Russia and the Consulate General of Germany in
Novosibirsk.
The topic of the 2020 forum is "University
City: Digital vs Real Communities and Spaces". About 300 experts from
Russia, England, Germany, France, Spain, India, the USA and other
countries participate in it. One can visit the event sites using the
links specified in the program.
Why TSU became the
initiator of the forum at one time and what is the importance of
interaction with the urban environment for universities, RIA Tomsk was
told by Head of the TSU Information Policy Department Julia Emer.
© РИА Томск. Таисия Воронцова
Head of the TSU Information Policy Department Julia Emer
About the environment in and around universities
-
Five years ago, TSU initiated the forum, because for us, the
development of a university city is probably one of the most important
and basic.
Tomsk is a special city, where the scientific
and educational complex is considered a city-forming one. The need for
such a platform was dictated by the global challenges faced by the
city-university, the internal need of the university to reflect on the
experience and build a development trajectory for the future.
© РИА Томск. Павел Стефанский
The
topic of the 2020 forum is dictated by new realities. A pandemic has
emerged that has put cities and universities in the face of the fact
that we will not live as before. Everything is changing: values,
economics, education. Yes, the education system can be changed while
maintaining the quality, but what should be the environment in a hybrid
reality, which has a tremendous impact on the formation of a person, his
worldview?
The participants of the current forum are
foreign and Russian universities, organizations and experts who are not
indifferent to the topic of the development of cities and universities
in the new conditions. We are looking for answers to questions: how can a
person live in an era of turbulence, how to act in urban and university
communities, how to organize space in order not just to survive, but to
develop.
About "digit" and reality
-
The topic of the forum sounds like "University City: Digital vs Real
Communities and Spaces". This is currently one of the main challenges to
humanity: a person who exists at the junction of reality, a new
environment and a new education. We are not talking about opposition –
both in education and in the environment it is necessary to combine
these things.
Today we already know and understand what
mixed education is: from infrastructure to management of the educational
process using AI, we know how to work with communities in new
conditions, and so on.
We – participants and organizers of
the forum, representatives of university cities – unite to discuss and
find solutions to the identified issues, realizing that looking for
answers and implementing solutions can only be done by joining forces,
understanding who has what strong competencies.
The Forum
of University Cities is really that communication venue, that platform
that brings together speakers to discuss questions that have not yet
been answered. And the participation of such a large number of foreign
and domestic universities just shows that we have raised important
issues that concern the community as a whole, without dividing into
countries.