Staff Training Courses

From 14 to 16 February Ghent University organises its annual international staff training week around the theme of 'Digital Tools in Internationalisation' in cooperation with the U4 network.  

The aim of this staff training week is to welcome both non-teaching and teaching staff from our partner institutions in order to share experiences and address specific challenges on various topics, such as grade conversion, inter-institutional quality review, the integration of (exchange) student applications, only study guides, housing applications (halls of residence), business intelligence platform, digital mapping, ticketing …

The U4 Staff Training Seminar on Graduate Schools took place in Göttingen from the 6th to 8th November 2016. Its aim was to deepen the mutual understanding of institutional settings, practices, and traditions as well as concepts of supervision and training.

Graduate schools are located at an interface between young researchers and international offices. They build an important hub for the international exchange of PhD students and researchers, and therefore act as a central agent in promoting the U4 Network and its many possibilities among doctoral and postdoctoral researchers.

This training seminar initiated intense exchanges of experience and expertise. Representatives of all four universities and from a wide range of disciplines were present, amongst which included experienced researchers and supervisors, policy advisors on Faculty and central levels, and operative graduate school staff.

The second module of the U4 Career Staff Training on 'International Specifics - Adaptation of Consultation Sessions' took place from 22 to 23 September 2016, hosted by the University of Göttingen.

After a welcome note by Vice-president Hiltraud Casper-Hehne and short introductions by Rabbe Hedengren, training coordinator from Uppsala University, and the workshop trainer Gudrun Henne, the training started with an introduction to the definition of 'intercultural competence'.

Subsequently several aspects of intercultural differences were presented, including managing time (being on time versus coming in defined time frames), usage of gestures (e.g. same gestures meaning different things), dealing with problems (addressing versus sidestepping them) and giving feedback (direct versus indirect).

The final session within the Academic Leadership Programme entitled 'Managing Change and Preparing for the Future' took place in Göttingen from 9 to 11 March 2016.

It was the fourth meeting during the 2-year period of the programme following the sessions in Groningen ('Developing Academic Talent', from 12 to 14 November 2014), Ghent ('Creating Transparency and Accountability in European Universities', from 11 to 13 March 2015) and Uppsala ('Leading Top Quality Universities', from 15 to 17 September 2015).

As part of the cluster Institutional Management the Academic Leadership Programme is directed at academic and administrative university leaders from the four co-operative universities within U4.

The University of Groningen is happy to invite the U4 partners to the Erasmus+ Staff Week in May 2016. This year, a 5-day programme will be offered with 2 parallel themes: ‘Sports & Culture’ and ‘Support Services & Careers’.

The programme does not only give you the opportunity to share best practices with like-minded professionals in Europe, but it will also provide an opportunity to meet the University of Groningen and its staff.

Registration is open till April 4th (online form). For more information please consult http://www.rug.nl/news-and-events/events/erasmus or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.