Aims

The project aims (i) to restructure the forestry curriculum so that the new MSc programme at FTA would integrate policy and economic sciences; and (ii) to advance the internationalisation of forestry studies at FTA. Development of a new 2-year MSc curriculum in itself could be an ambitious objective for a two-year international project. However, the programme curriculum and prepared teaching materials do not automatically guarantee that the new programme will be actually implemented. Therefore, partners target a number of outputs and activities that would raise the overall educational and administrative capacity safeguarding sustainable educational reforms also in the longer run.

Main outputs

The most extensive project output is a new MSc curriculum in forest policy and economics. The programme will consist of four semesters: 3 semesters of course activity and 1 semester of MSc thesis work. FORPEC will introduce a modular structure of studies (as opposed to the current semester system) serving as a pilot project at FTA. In case the modular structure will be found advantageous, other studies at FTA will be transformed from semester to module system as well. Individual courses in the new MSc programme will extend from 2 to 15 ECTS credits, depending on course topics and teaching forms. In general, effort will be made to develop larger courses that require combining knowledge from different disciplines at the expense of short and specific courses.

The final structure and contents of the programme will emerge as a well-weighted balance between the identified expected learning outcomes and the raised teaching capacity at FTA. Many courses and topics will be completely new for forestry education in Russia; however, FORPEC will also incorporate components from the existing courses where relevant and possible, to use the available capacity in the most efficient and effective way. The contents of the programme will be organised around three central thematic parts, each roughly corresponding to one semester of studies:

- Russian and International Forest Policy
- Management Planning for Sustainable Forestry in Russia
- Modern economics for forestry in transition

Project will also produce a number of other important outputs, the most significant among them being:

- Student mobility East-West, i.e. study stays by Russian students at the EU universities. Such stays will in typical cases extend for two semesters. SLU will guarantee that external (IKEA and StoraEnso) scholarships of sufficient size will be allocated for at least 6 students from FTA

- Exchange of teachers between Russian and EU universities. EU teachers will visit FTA for stays of various durations (from several days to 1 month) during the curriculum development work

- Recognition of international merits should address an important administrative impediment for internationalisation and student mobility at FTA. FTA administrators will scrutinise ECTS and recognition mechanism at EU universities and discuss their adaptations at home universities. Project sets the target to conclude functional double degree agreements between FTA and at least one EU university in the FORPEC consortium.