ONLINE KICK OF MEETING

The 1st TRANSNATIONAL KICK OFF MEETING was organized on-line on 26/01/2022 by Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra within the project Erasmus+ KA220-HED Cooperation Partnerships in higher education “Fostering Internationalisation in Higher Education by BioFood Virtual Labs” (2021-1-SK01-KA220-HED-000032062). The meeting was focused on the presentation of the project, purposes, outputs, activities, roles, schedule and contractual matters.

Prof. Kolesárová, coordinator of the project, presented the project, the main objective and sub-objectives, and expected results of the project BioFoodVirLabs. The main objective is fostering in higher education by development and promoting of new forms of remote and distance learning, new learning and teaching methods and approaches focused on vocational higher education in the field of biology, biotechnology and food sciences. The expected results of the project are: (1) Virtual labs in three fields (Biology, Biotechnology and Food sciences), (2) Libraries of virtual labs: library resources, scientific methodologies, multimedia materials, inquiry-based learning activities, interactive objects, video and audio tutorials, virtual experiments, interactive learning activities. Prof. Kolesárová presented timetable of the project and planned activities.

The representatives of 3 partner universities: Mendel University in Brno (Czech Republic), University of Debrecen (Hungary), Pedagogical University (Poland) presented their teams involved in the project, faculties, facilities, and labs used for teaching.

The introduction was followed by the presentation of the project Implementation of innovative genomic approach in creation of nuclear dairy herds to enhance qualitative and productive traits by Dr. Filip Tirpák, researcher of The AgroBioTech Research Centre at SUA in Nitra. This project, implemented within the Operational program Integrated Infrastructure: Creation of nuclear herds of dairy cattle with a requirement for high health status through the use of genomic selection, innovative biotechnological methods, and optimal management of breeding, NUKLEUS 313011V387, cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund, was presented as an example of good practice.

At the end of this meeting, the partners discussed planned tasks and responsibilities. The meeting was closed by prof. Kolesárová.