On 4 September 2020, the project team of Penza State University took part in the online meeting of the consortium implementing the international project “Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education in RUSSIA and CHINA”. PSU project managers – Sergey Vasin, Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation, and Tatyana Razuvaeva, Head of the International Projects Department – discussed with the European, Chinese and Russian colleagues key issues related to running the project in a complex epidemiological situation.

The project coordinator Prof. Dr. Holger Kuße (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany) invited the consortium members to hold a series of online conferences on distance learning in order to exchange positive experiences, discuss problems and jointly find ways to address learning challenges using distance learning technologies. The consortium members supported the proposal and agreed to arrange an online plenary session on 24 September 2020 as part of the international symposium “Higher Education in Transition” organised by the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra (Portugal).

In addition, the consortium members considered practical issues on implementing the project in 2020 – 2021 taking into account the threat of the coronavirus infection spread. All face-to-face events have been postponed to 2021, and a decision has been made to hold regular online meetings.

PSU continues to undertake activities within the international project. On 5 October 2020, the third group of trainees – teaching and administrative staff of PSU – will begin training in the professional development course “Enhancing teaching practices in terms of implementing the Bologna Process”. The course will be delivered in a combined mode – distance lectures and face-to-face practical classes.

The next online meeting is scheduled for 9 November 2020. The consortium members noted the importance of such meetings, since they allow making changes to the schedule of activities, coordinating them with partners with the view to the current situation in each specific country, and jointly discussing emerging problems. These are the prerequisite for the successful implementation of the project and fulfilment of all planned commitments.