International Lifelong Learning Network
Activity from January 2015
SQA
Outward
SQA will host an event for its centres in the Middle East. The event will take place in Dubai
between January and March (date to be confirmed).
January: SQA will attend the British Council conference ‘SEE into the Future’ in Belgrade,
Serbia.
February: SQA staff will attend the annual Community College International Development
Conference in California.
March: SQA will attend and present at the CSCSE-SQA Annual Conference in China, as
part of the China International Education Exhibition Tour 2015 event.
March: Dr Janet Brown will give a keynote address at the Study Abroad Forum in China.
Inward
January: A delegation from Nigerian educational establishments will visit SQA as part of
Nigerian Industrial Training Fund study visit to understand TVET education from a Scottish
perspective.
January: A group of school and college managers from Qatar will undertake a 2 day study
visit to SQA to gain an understanding of the Scottish educational landscape.
February: A delegation from Public Education Evaluation Commission in Saudi Arabia will
visit SQA, as part of a wider visit to attend the SCQF International Conference in Glasgow.
SQA has been confirmed as the External Partner to co-operate with Oman Academic
Accreditation Authority (OAAA) to develop the Oman Qualifications Framework.
The TVET Reform Project in Jordan, in which SQA partners GOPA, has been extended for
a further 9 months.
RSE
6-7 January 2015: The RSE held a joint workshop with the Ministry of Science and
Technology, Republic of China (Taiwan) on the topic of Sensors and Imaging and their
Applications including Medical Areas.
28 February: Deadline for RSE Bilateral Exchange awards
Connected Scotland partners have identified Brazil as the first priority country for
engagement and development. A small working group has been established made up of
representatives with specific knowledge and experience of working in that country. Market
analysis has also been commissioned. It is intended that a Connected Scotland mission will
visit Brazil in the first half of 2015.
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Spring/Summer: RSE/ National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Science
Workshop. The RSE will be holding a joint workshop with the NSFC. The topic of the
workshop is still to be confirmed. Following this workshop, participants have the
opportunity to apply to the RSE-NSFC Joint project scheme.
31 May: Deadline for RSE Bilateral Exchange awards
May/ June: NSFC-RSE-CAS: New paradigms for future collaboration in science and
innovation There will be a follow-up Chinese delegation visiting Scotland following the RSE
led high-level delegation to China in December 2014. The meeting will discuss how
academia, business and policy could be better integrated, with the aim to support economic
growth and innovation in Scotland and China.
June: RSE / Royal Society of Canada The RSE will be holding a joint event, in Edinburgh,
with the Royal Society of Canada on the topic of constitutional change.
June: RSE / Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Workshop There will be a
follow-up workshop to the May 2014 workshop held in Beijing on Urbanization – Smart
Cities, Sustainable Development and Reform of the Public Sector. This workshop will be
held in Edinburgh in June 2015. Following this workshop, participants have the opportunity
to apply to the RSE-CASS Joint project scheme.
29–30 June: ALLEA Board Meeting (RSE hosting)
31 August: Deadline for RSE Bilateral Exchange awards
Autumn: MacCormick European Lecture 2015
Autumn: Franco-Scottish Seminar The Royal Society of Edinburgh and French Embassy
in London will be holding a joint seminar. Topic to be confirmed.
Autumn: RSE / Ministry of Science and Technology, Republic of China (Taiwan) (MoST)
workshop The RSE will be holding a joint workshop, in Taiwan, with the MoST. The topic of
the workshop is still to be confirmed.
Autumn: Languages conference The RSE is planning to hold an event on ‘Languages in
Scotland – Where are we now?’. The RSE is currently seeking funding for this event.
30 November: Deadline for RSE Bilateral Exchange awards.
Exchange Programme
The RSE’s International Programme seeks to increase Scotland’s research and
development connections internationally; and increase the number of world-class science
and culture researchers working in Scotland. The RSE administers exchange schemes to
provide researchers of at least post-doctoral status with short visit opportunities (normally
up to four weeks) to and from Scotland, with a view to developing relationships leading to
collaborative projects and levering further research funding from other sources. The
deadlines for these schemes are quarterly in late February, May, August and November.
Between September and December 2014 two applications were supported by the RSE.
Education Scotland
Outward
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2-3 February, Hamburg: Cath Hamilton to attend the ELINET Adult Learning Team Seminar
to showcase the work of Education Scotland in this high-profile European project and learn
from other partners in developing European guidelines for all-age literacy.
Inward
19 January, Qatar: Proposed visit for Qatari group of head teachers and inspectors. This
group is a pilot for a proposed long-term and expansive project by British Careers Training
College which would involve partnerships with a range of Scottish education partners to
support the development of Qatari educational practice and aid capacity-building within
education across the Middle East and North Africa.
2 March, Singapore: Delegation from the Ministry of Education Singapore to learn the
design of learning experiences and resources that support the ICT-enriched student.
2 March, Netherlands: Delegation from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to
learn from Education Scotland experience.
April, Lithuania: Ministry of Education and Science, Proposed visit from educators for a
seminar on early years education.
May, Australia: Proposed visit by Claire Loads a qualified Teacher of the Deaf to look at
how itinerant services work in Scotland and also any bilingual programs for deaf children.
28 May, Australia: Department of Education Tasmania - Particular Interest in ‘More
Choices, More Chances’ strategy, partnerships and approaches towards the development
of policies and practice.
2015, India: Proposed study visit for education managers from India on Teacher
Management and Development and School Standards, Evaluation and Planning.
SAAS
12 March, Finland: Annual Network of Experts on Student Support in Europe (NESSIE)
Meeting in Helsinki. The purpose of this group is to promote the portability of grants and
loans in order to facilitate the greater mobility of students across Europe.
Recent Activity: October - December 2014
SQA
Outward
SQA is currently working in Jordan, Oman, Kazakhstan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia on ongoing contract activities undertaken on behalf of, and funded by, governments, ministries
and international development organisations.
November: SQA won a EuropeAid tender in collaboration with IBF for ‘Technical Assistance
to VET and Employment Reform in Georgia’. The project will run from January 2015 for 24
months.
November: SQA attended a launch event hosted by 7 centres in Myanmar.
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December: SQA won a tender with the Public Education Evaluation Commission (PEEC) in
Saudi Arabia for the development of a National Qualifications Framework. The project will
commence in February 2015.
December: SQA won a tender with the Saudi Skills Standards for the development of TVET
Qualifications and Assessment Development. The project commenced in December 2014.
October - December 2014: SQA staff attended the following conferences:
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Get Energy conference in Abu Dhabi
Adipec conferences in Abu Dhabi.
GetEnergy VTEC Global event in Houston
SQA gave a presentation on the link between qualifications development and skills
at the British Council ‘SEE into the Future Conference’ in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Inward
Between October and December, SQA hosted a range of study visits:
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The Polish Educational Research Institute (IBE) visited Scotland as part of a study
tour being hosted by the SCQF Partnership to understand how qualifications are
developed, credit rated for the SCQF, accredited and quality assured.
Study visit by Ministry of HR China December 2014, focussing on Accreditation and
Customised Awards.
Study visit by Guangdong Centre for Finance and Economics looking at aspects of
management of a centre including Quality Assurance.
RSE
5 December 2014: Deadline for RSE/NSFC Joint project funding applications
2-7 December: NSFC-RSE-CAS: New paradigms for future collaboration in science and
innovation The RSE led a high-level delegation to China, to meet with highly influential
figures from key organisations in China including NSFC and CAS to discuss how academia,
business and policy could be better integrated, with the aim to support economic growth
and innovation in Scotland and China.
The topics discussed during the workshop were :
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Industrial Biotechnology
Stratified Medicine
Sensors and Imaging.
30 November: Deadline for RSE Bilateral Exchange awards
24 November: MacCormick European Lecture 2014 - This year’s MacCormick European
Lecture was delivered by Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the European
Research Council. He visited Edinburgh for three days and met with Members of the Young
Academy, Enterprise Fellows, Postdoctoral Research Fellows and ERC grant holders.
18 November: Chevening Scholars Members of the Chevening Scholarship programme
visited the RSE and presentations were delivered to the group on the RSE’s international
work and on the recent Enlightening the Constitutional Debate series of events.
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28 October: Franco-Scottish public lecture – Multiple Sclerosis A public lecture was
delivered by Professor Charles ffrench-Constant from the University of Edinburgh and
Professor Catherine Lubetzki, Professor of Neurology, UPMC (Pierre and Marie Curie
University), Head of the Neurology Department, Salpetriere hospital, Paris, France. The title
of the lecture was ‘Multiple sclerosis; has research got us to the end of the beginning or the
beginning of the end?‘.
15 October: RSE / Inaugural Lecture of the Confucius Institute for Scotland Business
Lecture Series Lecture - China: Opportunities, Challenges, Risks by Sir Sebastian Wood
KCMG, Britain's Ambassador to China.
20-22 October: RSE / National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Science
Workshop The RSE held a joint workshop with the NSFC on the topic of Marine science
with a focus on its biodiversity. Following this workshop, participants have the opportunity to
apply to the RSE-NSFC Joint project scheme.
Education Scotland
Inward
28 October, Netherlands: Driestar Educatief Master Learning & Innovating. The main
purpose of the visit is to learn from what they see, hear and investigate and translate that
to their educational settings.
17 November, China: Education Bureau, Hong Kong SAR To meet with the HM Inspectors
to share practice on quality assurance of education psychology service delivered in
Scotland.
19 November, Netherlands: Visit by the Secretary of State for Education) to see the
Scottish Approach to Education.
1 December, Malawi: Visit by the Malawi Foreign Minister and team on Partnership work
with Education Scotland
9-11 December, Hungary: Programme managers and administrators Learning aims:
learning from visit to be utilized in the design of the next phase of learning centre
programmes in Hungary
Outward
4-6 November, Germany: David Watt to attend the Biennial Representative Board meeting
on European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education. In the European Agency
they are focused on raising the achievement of all, this is a key priority and presents
practical ways to take this agenda forward. Scotland is able to present positive
achievements in this area to over 30 European countries
4-8 November, Netherlands: Graham Norris to attend the AEA Europe 15th Annual
Conference.
12-14 November, Norway: Alan Armstrong and Juliet McAlpine to attend the CIDREE
Conference and General Assembly. The Conference is around the theme “Policy into
Practice" and will compare and contrast different countries approach to and successes in
moving from policy and practice. We have an article on the Scottish approach.
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19-21 November, Belgium: Carole McKenzie to attend the How to go with the data flow:
Connoisseurship of the Inspector organised by Standing International Conference of
Inspectorate (SICI) Secretariat. It is for Learning about international perspectives on
curriculum and making comparisons. And get International perspective of different models
of inspection.
SAAS
3 December, Helsinki: Attended the Chair meeting of the Network of Experts on Student
Support in Europe (NESSIE). The main focus of the meeting was for the three chair
countries (Scotland, Croatia, and Finland) to plan and organise the annual NESSIE meeting
for 2015. This is normally attended by over 25 countries.
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