World without borders – anniversary conference

The 20^th anniversary International conference “World without borders” took place in IvSU on April, 20.

During the plenary session the vice-rector for social development and international activity Nikita Sorokin welcomed all participants and underlined the conference celebrates its anniversary this year.

Chairman of the Organizing Committee, the founder and President of Association of Foreign Students in Russia Anicet Gabriel Kotchofa addressed everyone in his video message. He reminded: “More than 1.5 million highly qualified specialists for foreign countries have been trained for 80 years in the USSR and Russia. At a certain time 15 presidents of different countries were graduates from Russian Universities. In Benin all qualified specialists including the minister for agricultural affairs and pilots can speak Russian. We all want to say: “Thank you, Russia! Without you we would not have become people we are now” If I had started all over again I would have made the same choice”.

Director for Nanomaterial Research Laboratory prof. Nadezhda Usoltseva who stood at the origins of “World without borders” project thanked everyone having taken part in it and contributed to its development. She noted: “The most important thing here is trust which appears after long years of cooperation”.

Officially opening the conference the rector of IvSU Alexey Malygin shared his impressions how many years ago he joined the work on managing “World without borders”. It appeared to be a great school to study issues concerning foreign students studying in Russia. Rector underlined that our university would maintain the best traditions of the conference and continue developing the project.

After three plenary reports and a short break the conference work was continued in two sections: “Studying the language is the way to knowledge and dialog” and “Problems of social, legal and cultural adaptation of foreign students”.