Moscow City University represented by the International Relations Department and the Japanese Language Department have won an Erasmus Mundus Design Measures grant for the project “East-West Dialogue” aimed at design and development of a joint Master’s program in Intercultural communication and Japanese studies.
Erasmus Mundus Design Measures (EMDM) is a new Erasmus+ initiative that supports the design of high-level study programs at the master level, jointly delivered by an international consortium of higher education institutions from different countries worldwide.
The international consortium of the project includes leading European, Central Asian and Far Eastern universities along the axis West-East, such as University College Cork (Ireland), Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria), Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (Kazakhstan), and the University of Tsukuba (Japan). The project will be coordinated by Sofia University, while MCU will be the regional coordinator responsible for drafting joint agreements and curriculum development of the program. The joint EMDM grant that will be allocated to the five universities during the 15 months of project implementation is 55 000 EUR.
The project aims to
1) to develop and maintain a strong network between universities along the Axis Ireland—Japan;
2) to develop a program that will contribute to intercultural communication thanks to a curriculum and syllabus which prepares young professionals from various fields to apply their knowledge of cultures and languages to the benefit of intercultural relations and better understanding between Western Europe, Central and Eastern European countries, the Middle and the Far East;
3) to contribute to the education of young leaders who have a deeper understanding of the tensions and possible problem solving between members of societies from various economic, political, religious, social and cultural backgrounds.
Within the framework of the project the following tasks have been planned for the development of the MA program:
- Common framework of MA program;
- Joint management and graduation policy;
- Joint enrollment policy;
- Curriculum development;
- Student mobility policy;
- In-person project meeting;
- Joint evaluation policy;
- Draft agreements;
- Program recognition procedure;
- Dissemination strategy
By 2023, the partner universities will have developed a full-fledged MA program ready for recognition and open to students from all over the world who have the ambition to become experts in international relations. The MA program will help young professionals to get a better understanding and develop practical communicative skills to serve the plurilingual and pluricultural society of the 21st century.