12/20/2020

On December 15 was conducted online workshop "University - Industry Cooperation: Georgian Case Studies" within Erasmus+ project VitaGLOBAL, organized by Iakob Gogebashvili Telavi State University and supported by Georgian Technical University.

The representatives of TeSaU, GTU and VitaGLOBAL project consortium member universities as well as the colleagues from other Georgian Universities and business sector have been participated in the event.

Mr. Ramon Torrent, President of the OBREAL Global Observatory (Project Coordinator, Spain) opened the workshop. Ms. Tamar Aslanishvili (Head of IR Office, TeSaU), Prof. Manana Kervalishvili (Dean of the faculty of Agrarian Sciences, TeSaU) and Prof. Giorgi Kvartskhava (Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Science and Bio-Systems Engineering, GTU) welcomed the workshop participants. They talked about the university goals and strategies for industry cooperation; how academic staff and students interact with industry and how industry is engaged at an institutional level. The also reviewed existing challenges and specific perspectives on the agricultural sector and viticulture sector in the country.

Then was conducted the panel session related to the case studies of university-industry cooperation in Georgia and the panelists were the representatives of Georgian universities and bussiness sector: Prof. Ketevan Kintsurashvili, Dean of Agrarian Faculty (ATSU); Prof. Daria Kholodilina, Direction of Wine Tourism (CU); Ms. Maia Maghalashvili, Quality Manager and Ms. Ketevan Kochiashvili, Winemaker Assistant and GTU postgraduate student (Company “Château Mukhrani”); Mr. Vladimer Tsimakuridze, Head of Marketing Division (Winery “Khareba”) and Mr. Zurab Tsignadze, First Category Senior Specialist, Regional Projects Coordination Service of the State Representative Administration in Kakheti Region.

The panelists talked about the specific cases of University-Industry cooperation as main drivers for local and regional development and discussed actual issues related to the promotion of university-industry collaboration in the wine sector and the modes of such collaboration; university support university-industry collaboration in agriculture and viticulture; industry involvement in teaching and learning and research processes. They shared their experience in that regard and discussed the possibilities how such cooperation and related activities would better support the opening of the Georgian wine industry as well.

It should be noted that Georgian Technical University is participating in Erasmus+ Project VitaGlobal - “A Global Network for Agricultural Sciences and Viniviticulture: Internationalising through Joint Programmes” (598507EEP-1-2018-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP) as a project consortium member.

The main objective of the project VitaGLOBAL is to develop a global university network, connecting diverse geographic regions with limited pre-existing cooperation, in order to enhance study programmes that contribute to local development, specifically in food science and viniviticulture, foci mentioned universities share.

The coordinators of the project are Universitat Rovira I Virgili – URV and OBREAL Global Observatory (Spain). Project consortium consists of 17 institutions from Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa and Georgia.

More detail information about the project is available on VitaGLOBAL official website and GTU International Relations and Standards website.