This two-day international conference The University Purpose and Institutional Autonomy: Challenges and their Impact on Georgia is organised by East European University & Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University on October 29-30, 2021.
The conference aims to explore within an international context those issues in Georgian higher education which directly bear on social, cultural, economic and political development of the country. It is especially important to answer the following questions:
- What should be the purpose of higher education in Georgia?
- What are strengths and weaknesses of higher education in contemporary Georgia?
- What are the solutions to the existing problems?
- How higher education can promote the social, cultural, economic and political development of the country?
- What is the economic environment within which the higher education system in Georgia functions and what are main challenges in this regard?
- How autonomous are higher education institutions in Georgia?
- What is the degree of academic freedom in higher education institutions in Georgia?
The papers can cover a wide range of theoretical, scholarly and empirical work in international and Georgian contexts. The abstract submitted for consideration should represent original work that has not been published elsewhere.
The conference will consider papers from wide range of areas which fall within the themes of the conference. These include but are not limited to: academic freedom, discipline development, transdisciplinarity, autonomy, governance, quality assurance and assessment, international development, employment etc.
- The topic of the first day is “The Being of the University”;
- The topic ot the second day is “The Reality of the Institutional Autonomy in Universities”.
The discussions will take place at the end of the first and second days. At the end of the conference, a summary document will be developed, which will reflect the results of the review of papers presented at the conference and will identify the recommendations that will meet the purpose of the conference.
Target audience of the conference: doctoral students, post-doctoral students, researchers, specialists in the field from any educational institution.
Meeting format: face-to-face and/or virtual
Working languages of the conference: Georgian, English
Speech and discussion: 20 minutes speech, 10 minutes for Q&A.
Registration fee: Fully funded by the organizing universities.