Wittenborg's Research Centre Holds First Physical Meeting

21.04.2022

Wittenborg's Research Reward and Compensation Policy

Wittenborg's Research Centre held its first physical meeting on Wednesday, 23 March, attended by more than twenty faculty members who are also active researchers. The agenda topics on that day ranged from presentations on the progress of current EU-funded projects to a discussion on future skills and competencies of graduates.

The meeting started with a brief explanation of Wittenborg's Research Reward Policy by EU Project Coordinator Aydan Ismayilova. With the recent increase in the number of PhD-qualified faculty, the Research Reward policy was developed to foster Wittenborg's strategic commitment to increasing the number of scholarly active academic staff and to heed the call from Wittenborg's President for more practice-based research. Wittenborg strongly believes that research can boost the quality of teaching and learning and increase the body of knowledge in academia. All Wittenborg's faculty members are eligible to apply with the condition that the research article is published in a peer-reviewed Scopus index journal and that the research is in line with Wittenborg's strategic plan, mission & vision or core pillars. Besides a reward for the authors, the policy also allows compensation for costs incurred during the research.

Progress of Erasmus+ Projects Led by Wittenborg

Ismayilova then updated the members on the progress of current Erasmus+ Projects that Wittenborg is leading and the upcoming events, such as the multiplier event in April for the #INFURI project, and mobility event for the Eco-System of Open Science Schooling Project, whereby students and teachers from Lithuania, Poland, Turkey and Romania will be visiting the Netherlands.

Head of School of Business Dr Rauf Abdul spoke about future working skills and competencies. The topic elicits active discussions among members about what skills will be in demand in the next five years and how Wittenborg can upgrade its programmes and curriculum to fulfil workforce demands of the industry in the next decade.

Dr Fahad Shakeel then shared his PhD journey with the participants. The presentation, interspersed with some humour and witty comments, contained reminiscences of some of the faculty who had undergone the same experience.

Before the close of the meeting, Dr Bojan Georgievski invited members to participate and submit papers for the conference 'Contemporary Challenges of Economic Growth and Sustainability of Business'. The event, to be held online on 1 June, is organised by the Institute of Economics in Skopje, North Macedonia.