Academia Europaea to launch South Caucasus education hub at Tbilisi State University
The proposed hub will open at the Tbilisi State University, which marked its centenary this year. Photo: Tbilisi State University.
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Academia Europaea, a renowned international education organisation, will launch its first academic hub outside of the European Union at Georgia’s Tbilisi State University.
The academy, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, will use the regional centre to “develop science and research activity” in South Caucasus, Georgia’s Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Mikheil Batiashvili announced earlier today.
The minister revealed a confirmation on launching the hub by the council of the European institution today, which follows a visit by an Academy delegation earlier this year.
In May, a group of representatives from the organisation, which is also known as The Academy of Europe, was in Tbilisi to engage in talks on plans for the centre.
[The decision on the hub] is another great recognition of [Georgian science], all generations of scientists in our country and the entire academic public, as well as a confirmation of their special contribution to and potential in the scientific world”, Batiashvili said.
Established in Cambridge, Academia Europaea has grown from over 600 members in 1989 to nearly 4,000 today, including more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates. Members include George Sharvashidze, the TSU Rector, and Mikheil Chkhenkeli, former Education Minister of Georgia.
Welcoming the news, Sharvashidze noted in his comments “many young people will gain an opportunity to join various European programmes” through the prospective hub.
Academia Europaea works to advance and propagate “excellence in scholarship” in fields including law, economics, humanities and maths.
The non-governmental association aims to “promote European research, advise governments and international organisations in scientific matters, and further interdisciplinary and international research”.
Activities and structures used for these goals include expert workshops, scientific publications and study groups held by the institution.
The Academy has hubs in Bergen in Norway, Barcelona in Spain, Cardiff in Wales and Wroclaw in Poland.