Researchers seconded from UNWE Sofia, Bulgaria, to AASTMT in Alexandria, Egypt, including Prof. Luben Kirilov Boyanov (Professor in the Department of Information Technologies and Communications) and Prof. Daniela Koch-Kozhuharova (Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of International Relations and Politics), paid their first visit to the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT).
They were hosted by Prof. Ahmed Khalifa Mehanna, Project Coordinator at AASTMT and Vice Dean of Student Affairs, and Prof. Mahmoud Mansour, Director of the Scoured Certificates and Documents Center at AASTMT. The Bulgarian delegation was welcomed by Prof. Ahmed Samir Shehata, Head of the Marine and Offshore Engineering Department, as part of the Horizon European Project STUDIES-DIG, “Models and Instruments for Transforming Higher Education Systems Through Transnational Multisector Links.”
The visiting researchers were impressed not only that their initial meetings with deans, professors, and lecturers from two faculties took place on Sunday—the first Labour Day in Egypt—but also by the AASTMT Main Campus, the strict regulations requiring students to use university dormitories and wear uniforms during the first two years of study, and the warm hospitality of the Egyptian hosts. These factors have significantly boosted the motivation for cooperation between the Bulgarian and Egyptian partners in the consortium, facilitating the project’s primary data collection and analysis phase.
