Institute of Economic Studies Presented Charles University’s Programmes at the Shang ****************************************************************************************** * Krize ozdravují myšlení ****************************************************************************************** Institute of Economic Studies of the Charles University Faculty of Social Sciences present speaking programmes to prestigious Chinese and some European universities and their studen Shanghai Expo. At the same time, the Institute and its partners from Fudan University join workshop called The EU and China in Turbulent Times. Our times are indeed dramatic in many respects, as Professor Michal Mejstřík, the director Institute, and the deputy director Martin Gregor, will reveal in the following interview. take a moment to contemplate the unique position of economics in forming the perspective o days and decisions to come. “The beauty of the future is in its a priori unknowability, in endeavour of searching for a solution, and economics should contribute to this search”, sa Mejstřík. Prof. Michal Mejstřík, IESOne of the basic goals of your trip to Shanghai was to strengthe this relationship fruitful for the University and your Institute This all goes back to 2004, when we presented our institute to g of them were interested in a more systematic form of collaborati with China and departed on an exploratory trip. I visited severa initiated a whole more general programme, that received EU fundi but the whole Faculty of Social Sciences collaborating with Chin books. Cooperation with Chinese partners was therefore supported by the EU, so it has more profou purely bi-lateral and academic agreements. What do people in Shanghai and at Fudan Univers Prague and Charles University? Michal Mejstřík: With 20 million inhabitants, Shanghai is an important industrial and fina and although we are seeking to collaborate with many other universities, Fudan is among th universities in the country and ranks well in the international arena. Charles University, hand, along with Vienna University, is the only university in the Central and Eastern Euro among the 300 top ones in the world. Also, Charles University was the only one from our re renowned German, French, Dutch and British universities in the EU-supported cooperation pr way we are trying to establish the position that Charles University deserves both for its present research, the position of one of the best Central and Eastern European universitie The Institute of Economic Studies took advantage of the Czech Pavillion at Expo 2010 to pr of Social Sciences and its programmes. What else can the Institute offer to Chinese studen candidates to come to Prague, and not anywhere else? Michal Mejstřík: Before I hand over to my colleague Martin Gregor, let me say that our pre returned a favour to Fudan University, which had organized the conference last year. We ca conference not to Prague, but to the Czech Pavilion, to take advantage of the 6 million vi academic element to the presentation of our country. In the process, we managed to convinc Social Sciences to compile a very up-to-date presentation of its programmes taught in Engl consistently offering all of the programmes, not only the Economics and Finance Bachelor’s degree taught at our Institute. Martin Gregor: An important impulse was the decision of the new management of the faculty respect, first with our Master’s, and later our Bachelor’s degree, so we suggested more qu professional promotional materials. These turned out to be very useful, as we had both pre The initial question was how to get these materials to Chinese students. We knew we could it was more useful for us to contact our partners in China and ask their international dep students who are considering applying. Anyway, promotional activities must follow standard agencies, all kinds of online networks, intermediaries, and so on. Michal Mejstřík: I would like to stress that at the EXPO, we presented Charles University jointly with Fudan. Fudan University is a great partner to be associated with, because it university. Thanks to this, many other universities joined the event and we ended up being Tongji University, Shaghai Institute for Foreign Trade (SIFT), East China Normal Universit had already collaborated, and others. (Marie Kohoutová) Translation: Jaroslav Švelch