The second best among Czech universities. The University of Hradec Králové receives a bumper crop of funds for international student mobility
Author: Jakub Novák
Once again, in 2019 the Centre for International Cooperation in Education distributed public funds intended for international student mobility among 22 institutions. As in 2018, the University of Hradec Králové succeeded and managed to obtain the second highest mobility budget of EUR 697 215.
“Converted to local currency, this is almost eighteen million Czech korunas, which we may use both to send our students and teachers abroad and to welcome foreign students and teachers or researchers. We consider internationalisation to be one of the priorities of our University and the funds received in the competition of other universities confirm this orientation,” Zdeněk Beran, the Vice-Rector for International Relations, explains. Just for comparison, in 2018 the University obtained international mobility funds of EUR 396 316, which is just above ten million Czech korunas.
With the funds, the University of Hradec Králové may send hundreds of Czech students to study abroad and accept hundreds of international students in return per year. The experience gained by Czech students on their study trips is invaluable: “It massively improves the labour market success of our graduates. Employers are very interested in candidates who have this type of experience.
The more dissimilar cultural environment the student is capable of experiencing, the better skills he or she is able to gain,” adds Vice-Rector Beran from his experience.
The University even managed to obtain 100% of all funds available for study trips to Latin America and 90% of funds in the category of so-called other industrial countries, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Republic of Korea.
Where Africa is concerned, the University won over 50% of the funds available in the Czech Republic. In total, the UHK obtained 15% of the entire budget distributed to Czech universities, which made it the second most successful university in the program. Only Mendel University in Brno managed to collect more.
“We place great emphasis on sending our students abroad and on accepting international students. The numbers clearly confirm it – in 2018, 409 Czech students from the University of Hradec Králové left the Czech Republic to study abroad, while 598 students from our international partner universities came to study at our University. Given that our University has only about 6000 students, I think that these numbers speak volumes,“ Kamil Kuča, the Rector of the University of Hradec Králové, comments on the success.
The University of Hradec Králové launched a special recruitment series for international students in 2018. It is called the UHK Guide and already has over 80 thousand views.
