In the end of May, between 27th and 29th, more than 60 participants and invited guests from 14 countries – representatives of The Royal Norwegian Embassy, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Financial Mechanism Office from Brussels, National Focal Points and Scholarship Fund Intermediaries from 10 countries – took part in the 1st Meeting of the Scholarship Funds Intermediaries. The meeting was also attended by the representatives of partner institutions from 2 donor countries: the Office of International Education at the University of Iceland and The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU) from Norway.

The meeting was organized by the Financial Mechanism Office (FMO) and Polish Intermediary of the Scholarship and Training Fund – Foundation for the Development of the Educational System, in cooperation with the Royal Norwegian Embassy, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Major objective of the meeting was making acquaintance and the exchange of experience between representatives of the beneficiary states and donor states in order to start up working groups’ meeting similar to these organized between the National Agencies and the European Commission.

Official opening of the seminar was done by Ms. Katarzyna Aleksandrowicz who gave a welcoming speech on behalf of the Foundation for the Development of the Education System (FRSE) and then asked His Excellency Ambassador of Kingdom of Norway, Mr. Enok Nygaard to open the meeting on behalf of the Kingdom of Norway – the biggest donor among the EEA countries. The donor countries were represented by Ms. Helene Rønning from the Financial Mechanism Office, Mr. Eivind Vad Petersson from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ms. Rúna Vigdís Guðmarsdóttir from the Icelandic Office of International Education. Ministry of Regional Development was represented by Ms. Małgorzata Zalewska, Deputy Director of the Department for Aid Programmes and Technical Assistance who gave a welcoming speech on behalf of Focal Point of Fundusz Stypendialny i Szkoleniowy.

The meeting programme was composed of plenary sessions followed by presentation of good practice projects which are still being implemented under Fundusz Stypendialny i Szkoleniowy, ie. Polish Scholarship and Training Fund and final group discussion between the Scholarship Funds’ stakeholders. Mr. Vidar Pedersen from SIU and Ms. Rúna Vigdís Guðmarsdóttir provided background for discussion by giving presentations of both Norwegian and Icelandic education system which were supplemented by statistics regarding cooperation between beneficiary states and donor states as viewed by the Icelandic and Norwegian partner institutions.

During the ‘360 degrees’ analysis and assessment of the Scholarship Funds between the donor countries (Financial Mechanism Office from Brussels and Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the beneficiary states (representatives of Focal Points from 10 beneficiary states) and Scholarship Funds intermediary institutions from 10 countries the following issues were tackled:

• diversity of various Scholarship Funds schemes and exchange of experience between representatives of 10 scholarship funds who attended the meeting;
• challenges connected with supporting fund beneficiaries to find local partners in donor countries and ways to overcome these challenges;
• challenges connected with different deadlines for calls for proposals in beneficiary states and donor states;
• problems and challenges which emerge during the fund management, eg. (i) drafting/signing the agreements with the national Focal Points, (ii) changes which the Intermediaries wish to introduce in the fund management after signing the agreement, including the allocations between different fund measures (some funds suffer either over- or under-subscription, depending on funds’ specific), and finally (iii) different bureaucratic procedures connected with scholarship fund implementation as viewed both from the Focal Points’ and Intermediaries’ institutions point of view.

Apart from the SWOT analysis of the already launched Scholarship Funds, the “newcomers” from Romania and Slovenia depicted their to-be scholarship funds and in the end the idea of a perfect scholarship fund was brought to life.

The organizers would like to express their gratitude towards honourable guests of the 1st Meeting of the Scholarship Fund Intermediaries: Ms. Sidsel Bleken – Minister and Ms. Agata Hernik-Ślusarczyk – Adviser (EEA Grants) from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Warsaw, as well as STF’s partner institutions from Iceland and Norway and Beneficiaries of Fundusz Stypendialny i Szkoleniowy:

• Ms. Ilona Biernacka-Ligięza from the University of Opole, Beneficiary of Measure III (project title: Local media in Northern Europe – society, culture, market and policy);
  Project summary
  Local media in Northern Europe-project presentation

• Mr. Sebastian Krajewski and Ms. Ewa Banach from The College of Enterprise and Administration in Lublin - Beneficiary of Measure I: Mobility Projects;
  Project summary
  Mobility projects, strategy building - project presentation

• Ms. Ewa Murawska from Music Academy Poznań – Beneficiary of Measure IV, and Ms. Áshildur Haralsdóttir from Icelandic partner institution: Tónlinstarskólinn í Reykjavík (project title: Together in Music);
  Project summary

• Ms. Anna Zielińska from Collegium Civitas Warsaw – Beneficiary of Measure IV – (project title: The European Neighbourhood Policy);
  Project summary
  European Neighbourhood Policy - project presentation

• Ms. Justyna Woźniakowska from Tischner European University in Cracow – Beneficiary of Measure V (project title: Peace and Development Studies);
  Project summary
  Peace and Development Studies - project presentation

• Mr. Alek Tarkowski from the University of Warsaw – Beneficiary of Measure V (project title: Open the book).
  Project summary
  Open a book - project presentation

Above all, however, we would also like to thank the participants of the 1st Meeting of the Scholarship Fund Intermediaries for their heads full of ideas and their positive attitude, and also for our colleagues from:

• Czech Republic – Jitka Stastna, Centre for International Services MoEYS National Agency for European Educational Programmes
• Hungary – Agnes Balla, Tempus Public Foundation
• Latvia – Zane Birzniece, Academic Programme Agency
• Slovakia – Karla Zimanova, Slovak NIL Fund Supporting Cooperation

who presented their institution and scholarship fund specific to their fellow colleagues from abroad.

We hope that the aftermath of this meeting will result in strengthening the relations between the EEA countries and beneficiary states managing the Scholarship Funds to the mutual benefit of the citizens of all the abovementioned countries.

Programme

Newsletter No1

Newsletter No2

Helene Ronning – Financial Mechanism Office
Vidar Pedersen - The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU)
Runa Vigdís Guðmarsdóttir - Office of International Education
Katarzyna Aleksandrowicz - Scholarship and Trainig Fund
Jitka Stastna, Centre for International Services MoEYS National Agency for European Educational Programmes
Agnes Balla, Tempus Public Foundation
Zane Birzniece, Academic Programme Agency
Karla Zimanova, Slovak NIL Fund Supporting Cooperation