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Call for Letter of Interest
The EuroFaculty Pskov Project is seeking a candidate to assess the status and progress of the project. Interested persons/entities are invited to send a letter of interest by email and ordinary post to the official address of the Lead Country no later than 20 September 2010.
The assessing person/entity shall be a legal person or an established group of no more than three persons with documented qualifications for evaluating international cooperation projects in the field of higher education. In order to document the qualifications of each person who may participate in the assessment, a dated and signed Curriculum Vitae, and at least two short descriptions of previous assessments, including the name and contact information of the responsible contractor, shall be included in the submitted proposals.
The short-listed entities will be notified by 4 October 2010 and invited to present
a detailed proposal for the execution of the task no later than 29 October 2010.
The assessing person/entity shall define the methodology that will be used, and
that will be relevant to meet the aims. This should be presented clearly in the proposal/letter of interest as it will constitute an important element of the selection criteria among the bidding teams/bidders. The assessment work will start mid November and the deadline for the Final Assessment Report will be 14 February 2011.
For further information please download the full Terms of Reference.
The Council of the Baltic Sea States decided in December 2007 to launch a EuroFaculty project in the Region of Pskov in western Russia, close to the border of Estonia and Latvia. The aim of the project is to upgrade university education in Business Economics at two institutions of higher education, the Pskov State Polytechnic Institute and the Pskov Volny Institute. This will be done i.a. by curriculum development and through new teaching and examination methods, all aiming at bringing the economics studies at these two institutions in line with recognised international standards.
The EuroFaculty Pskov project will run from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2011.
The official opening event took place in the Hall of the Pskov Oblast administration on 30 January 2009.
The project will draw on previous positive experiences of similar EuroFaculty projects at universities in Tartu (Estonia), Riga (Latvia) and Vilnius (Lithuania) during the years 1993–2005, and in the Russian Region of Kaliningrad during 2000–2007.
Project objectives
Within the subject area Business Economics/Business Administration, the following set of objectives has been defined:
1. Curriculum development in order to bring relevant degree courses at bachelor and master levels as well as programs of further/additional vocational studies in line with the requirements of the Bologna process.
2. Provision of a targeted and systematic teacher training in support of curriculum development and more interactive and demanding teaching methods, i.a. the introduction of problem and project-based learning with increased self-study.
3. Improved examination methods to ensure the link between what is taught and how it is taught, and what and how is tested.
4. Creation of a quality assurance system which, combined with support to management, will ensure lasting improvements in the quality of teaching and learning.
5. Provision of additional language training for PPI and PVI staff and students to establish the necessary prerequisites for communication and international networking.
6. Provision of enhanced access to books, journals and other means of communicating research results, including training of librarians at PPI and PVI to be of best possible service to the academic staff as well as to the students.
7. Establishment of a mobility scheme which will give MA and PhD students opportunities to study abroad at donor universities for a limited period of time.
Receiving Institutions
The receiving institutions in Pskov are:
- Pskov State Polytechnic Institute (PPI)
- Pskov Volny Institute (PVI)
Management
Sweden is Lead Country for the Pskov project with a representative from its Ministry for Foreign Affairs heading the project’s steering body, the International Expert Group for the EuroFaculty project in Pskov. The Lead Country coordinates the EuroFaculty project together with the International Expert Group and ensures that the project is properly implemented. The International Expert Group consists of representatives of most of the donors to the project.
Financing
The EuroFaculty Pskov project is financed to date by voluntary contributions from all the CBSS Member States: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation and Sweden, and three external partners: the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the United Kingdom.
The financial model implies that all donor funds are committed from the start of the project according to an agreed payment schedule. Furthermore, all cash contributions should be pooled in one central account managed by the Lead Country. Moreover, these funds should be released in accordance with a pre-planned disbursement schedule and fulfilment of contractually stipulated reporting. This model of financial control has proved efficient in securing an equally important donors’ need, namely that of accountability. The vast majority of contributions to the project are pledged in-cash through the Lead Country account, while some contributions are made in-kind.
The University Consortium
The project implementation is carried out by a consortium consisting of a number of Donor Universities headed by a Lead University. The consortium, together with the receiving institutions in Pskov, has the task of defining and describing in detail the specific actions that need to be taken in order to start the implementation of the project. The specific actions will be tested in an inception period of five months, followed by an inception report.
The Lead University will be subcontracting both with relevant donor universities supplying academic assistance in the subject areas concerned, and with the two receiving institutions in Pskov. One of the advantages of this model is the existence of a set of legally binding contracts that are established by the various universities. Should a problem occur which cannot be solved at consortium level, it will be referred to the Expert Group.
As a result of a competitive selection process conducted in the spring of 2008, a consortium of six universities headed by the Turku School of Economics was awarded the task of implementing the project.
The Turku School of Economics is the consortium’s Lead University. The other donor universities are Roskilde University (Denmark), Trondheim Business School (Norway), University of Turku (Finland), Saint Petersburg State University (Russia) and Stockholm School of Economics, Saint Petersburg, Russia (Sweden).
Background
Basing a EuroFaculty (EF) project in the Russian city of Pskov was initially suggested by the Governor of Pskov in October 2003 and first discussed by the CBSS governing body, the Committee of Senior Officials (CSO), at its meeting in Tartu and Pskov (March 2004).
The CSO commissioned a fact-finding mission, whose report became the basic document underlying a potential EF-Pskov. The report concluded that establishing an EF-Pskov with three years duration would be worthwhile. It further recommended a joint project involving a state and a non-state institution, naming the Pskov State Polytechnic Institute (PPI) and the Pskov Volny Institute (PVI) as the two most promising targets for a EuroFaculty Project.
In April 2007, the then Swedish Presidency of the CBSS financed a feasibility study, which positively assessed the opportunities for the project. The scope of the feasibility study was limited to the two institutions that were chosen by the fact-finding report (i.e. PPI and PVI). The study defined and limited the project’s subject area to “Business Economics” in the broad sense. On the basis of the recommendation of the feasibility report, all CBSS Member States and three external partners decided to pledge contributions to the project.
The EuroFaculty Project in Pskov will be organised in accordance with the principles and organisational management structure of the EuroFaculty Project in Kaliningrad.
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