On October 28, the Academy of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ASCCA) hosted the first-everinternational meeting and events in the framework of the Work4CE ("Cross-domain competencies for healthy and safe work in the 21-st century", 2020-2024) consortium project implemented in the "Capacity Building in Higher Education" category of the Erasmus+ program funded by the European Union.

The event consisted of the welcoming and keynote speeches, memoranda-signing, pilot teaching and selected lectures, a special project meeting, as well as the tours arranged for the Work4CE consortium delegation. The event attendees included the Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Committee, Major General of the Customs Service Igbal Babayev, ASCCA Rector,, Major General of the Customs Service Gulu Novruzov, Work4CE Project Coordinator Prof. Galina Tabunshchyk, as well as the the ASCCA staff, First Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in Azerbaijan Yevhen Osadcii, Third Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in Azerbaijan Oleksandr Dorofieiev, project consortium representatives of other foreign and local universities, andand the Academy’s Work4CE project stakeholder partner institutions in the private and public sectors.

Delivering a keynote speech in the event’s opening ceremony, the ASCCA Rector, Gulu Novruzov, greeted the guests and expressed his pleasure to welcome them at the Academy. He spoke about the importance of both the Work4CE project and the day’s large-scale project event, outlining a a detailed information to the guests about the Academy’s activities.. He underlined that Azerbaijan, having restored it territorial integrity in the 44-day Patriotic War of 2020, would further expand its international cooperation relations particularly in education, science, research and capacity building, also via implementing the EU-funded and other international projects and programs.  and partnering with   

Following the event, the Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Committee Igbal Babayev welcomed the guests and stressed the event’s importance, project’s significance, and the ASCCA Work4Ce project expecations, elaborating the success stories of the ASCCA international cooperation developed in the past few years.

Then, the Project Coordinator, Prof. Tabunshchyk, delivered a speech on the project state of play with a particular focus on the project implementation in Azerbaijan, expressing her gratitude to the ASCCA for its resolute support to the project management and implementation.

A special session of the event was the signing of three memoranda  of understanding on cooperation, between the Academy and the consortium’s all three Ukrainian partner universities, namely,  the Kyev National University of Construction and Architecture West Ukrainian National University, Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic National University.

Furthermore, a special meeting dedicated to the WorkCE project management meeting was also held. Galyna Tabunschyk presented to the consortium’s project managers the registered progress, challenges and the next phases, in the project implementation, on which the project managers reflected and a discussion was held concerning the key milestones, deliverables and specific tasks.

In accordance with the event’s agenda, the academicians from Ukraine (Galyna Tabunschyk, Olena Verenych), Belgium (Peter Arras), Germany (Carsten Wolff) as well as from the Academy (Asif Ganbayev) conducted specific and organized pilot teaching based on the digital transformation modules developed through the Work4Ce project. The lectures focused on “Industry 4.0” and “digital twins”; Managing Digital Change; Business Communication; Open Educational Resources; and “Embedded Systems” and Technological Trends.  These proceeded a succesful lecture conducted especially for the ASCCA students on 26 October, by the academician of the University of Basque Country (Bilbao, Spain), Dr. Erlantz Lizundia, on the “Life Cycle Thinking and Sustainable Management”.

The Work4CE consortium delegation also had a chance to pay a visit to the State Customs Committee’s Dog Training Center (World Customs Organization’s Regional Training Center), as well as the Customs Museum, after which a special closing session was held at the Academy.It should be noted that the ASCCA is the Work4Ce project consortium’s full partner institution, and has been particularly in charge of the development of the Module on “Digital Technologies”, which is one of the developed nine modules that will form the Virtual joint Master’s Degree Program among the consortium partner institutions. Furthermore, the Academy also represents Azerbaijan in the executive structure of the  project consortium.

 

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