WUS Podgorica organised Kick-off Event "University and Economy"

Podgorica. The “University and Economy” event took place on the 19th of March 2008 at 12.00 noon at the Rectorate Hall in Podgorica. The event was organised in order to present the new WUS/ADA Program, especially the Labour Market Oriented Curriculum Project (LMOC), to relevant stakeholders, as well as to bring together representatives of the University of Montenegro and the business sector for future cooperation under this program.

At the event, possibilities for introducing new labour market oriented curricula and development of students’ practical skills were discussed. The introduction of the new labour market oriented curricula will bring a number of benefits:

• cooperation between the University of Montenegro and the business sector will be established and constantly improved;
• methodologies and instruments for continuous adjustment of curricula to the concrete needs of the market and society in general will be developed;
• four new labour market oriented curricula, each of them including five new courses, will be developed at four selected Faculties;
• university graduates will improve their knowledge and skills, which will result in the increase of employability;
• companies will take part in creating the new curricula and provide research topics to students for their Masters and PhD theses.

Preparation of new or modified curricula will be completed by October 2009, when they will be introduced at selected faculties.

The objectives of the Labour Market Oriented Curricula Project are as follows:

• to ensure and strengthen constant and sustainable cooperation between the University of Montenegro and the business sector to the mutual benefit and benefit of the Montenegrin society as a whole;
• improve employability of experts who are highly demanded by the Montenegrin labour market;
• improve research and development at the University of Montenegro for the concrete market needs;
• improve knowledge transfer from Austria and other EU countries and reduce the ‘brain drain’ phenomenon;
• support further development of the University of Montenegro through the Brain Gain Program+ by bridging the gap in local capacities for research and development, and at the same time widen the international academic network and institutional cooperation.

Speakers and presentations at the "University and Economy" event were as follows:

• Welcoming speech
  Professor Ljubisa Stankovic, Rector of the University of Montenegro
• Support to WUS Austria by the Austrian Development Cooperation
  Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to Montenegro, HE Florian Raunig
• Welcoming speech
  Almir Kovacevic, Executive Director of WUS Austria Head Office in Graz
• “Labour Market Oriented Curriculum”
  presentation of the project, Mladenka Tesic, WUS Program Manager
• “Labour Market Reform and Workforce Development”
  Slavica Raicevic, Project Expert, CARDS 2006
• Introduction of the new study programme in mechanical wood processing at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Podgorica
  Professor Goran Culafic, Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Launching new Masters programme in Mathematical Modeling and Financial Mathematics
  Dr. Vladimir Jacimovic, the Faculty of Mathematics
• “Microsoft Academy” - Cooperation opportunities between the University of Montenegro and Microsoft
  Vuk Vukasinovic, Group Manager, Microsoft Montenegro
• Labour market demands in the area of Civil Engineering
  Danijela Saban, Celebic, d.o.o. Podgorica
• Presentation of WUS-Austria ongoing projects and Balkan Case Challenge
  Drakul Goran, WUS Business Manager

   
The event was attended by more than 90 representatives from the University, business sector and representatives of Ministries. The presentations were followed by discussion and various questions. At the end of the event, Goran Drakul (Business Manager of WUS-Austria in Podgorica) addressed the participants and informed people from the business sector about the BCC info-desk, where they could find all relevant information, as well as promotion material.

All television stations, radio and newspaper agencies were present at the kick-off event.

The event was followed by a cocktail.

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