The 4th edition of the International Staff Week at Instituto Superior Técnico took place from 17 and 21 June. It brought together around 30 participants from more than 14 countries working in the field of international affairs at their home institution.
The ceiling of the Main Building’s atrium was decorated with colourful umbrellas to host the International Day (I-Day), the culmination of International Staff Week (ISW). The Técnico community and the ISW participants could “network with students, collaborators and partners”, explained Elisa Cipelli, from the University of Padua (Italy). The Italian university has “a double degree programme with Técnico” and meetings like the ISW are opportunities for “strategic partnerships” in which “similar results” are achieved to those obtained at “larger, more expensive fairs”, explained Cipelli.
Petra Králová, from the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) at the Brno University of Technology (Czech Republic), was “looking for ideas to attract European candidates for master’s and doctoral programmes” and took the opportunity to learn more about the other universities and “get ideas”. “Finding more effective ways of communicating” with candidates and students motivated Mireia Puig Poch, from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (Spain), to participate in the activity, which enabled her to “meet people from different parts of Europe” and forced her to be “face-to-face” something which, she adds, “is still important”.
Besides learning more about the Portuguese culture, such as fado, pastéis de nata and the Portuguese duck rice, the visitors were interested in “learning about Técnico and how things are done here”, said Johanna Ogon, head of the Erasmus programme at Ensta Bretagne (France).
The I-Day brought together nearly 25 institutions. Técnico promoted its international offer, such as international mobility programmes and double degrees programmes.
