BOVA History
Organisation
The cooperation between NOVA and BOVA universities reaches mid
1990s. Initially cooperation activities were carried out through the
NOVABA programme for co-operation between the Nordic (NOVA) and the
Baltic (BOVA) agricultural universities which was formally established
in December 1995 in Kaunas, Lithuania. As a consequence, the NOVABA
co-operation scheme was approved and in the year 1996 a Letter of
Intent for further collaboration was signed in Tartu, Estonia. The
primary activity of NOVABA programme was organisation of short MSc
courses at the BOVA universities in 1996-2000. BOVA has also promoted
establishment of professional contacts among academic staff of its
universities.
In October 1999 the Rectors of BOVA and NOVA met again to
review the progress of the project and sign yet another agreement.
NOVABA programme yielded good results, as confirmed by positive
evaluations by participating students and teachers as well as an
external expert. One of the greatest values lies in the creation of a
strong platform for the future cooperation in the form of established
personal professional networks. However, the major deficiency in NOVABA
activity was complete dependence on the external financing, namely by
the Nordic Council of Ministers. Little effort was made to find other
sources of financing and NOVABA faced a sharp decline in its activities
in 2001 when the support by the Nordic Council of Ministers ceased.
Responsible representatives of NOVA and BOVA networks
recognised the need for new agreement with strengthened institutional
capacities on the BOVA side. For this purpose, the NOVA side succeeded
to get a grant from the K&A Wallenberg foundation. The grant of SEK
2.5 million is in use until the end of 2004. The BOVA secretariat with
one full time position is established since June 2002. Also, three part
time coordinator positions and one contact person are established at
member universities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Activities
The main organisational objectives of BOVA network is to
maintain and develop co-operation between the Baltic agricultural
universities through promoting higher education and research in the
field of agriculture and related sciences, thus gaining a better
understanding and expertise in the sustainable use of natural
resources, food production, rural development, and environmental
protection.
During the four-year cooperation period (1996-1999) the
collaboration has been highly successful. A total of 41 short courses
on MSc level were carried out in the Baltic agricultural universities
with a total of about 500 participants. Each course had participants
from all the three Baltic States, besides that a number of courses were
open for the students from Russia (St. Petersburg region) and Poland.
The collaboration has also included a very successful project
involving the libraries of the participating institutions. Within
library co-operation a questionnaire "Agricultural, Forestry and
Veterinary Sciences - study of user education needs in the Baltic
libraries within the NOVA-BOVA network" was completed. Librarians now
want to strengthen electronic. Services and for this purpose a joint
project called NOVA Information Gateway has been started.
In 1998 the activities of NOVA-BOVA network were analysed,
evaluated and appreciated by an external evaluator Professor Lauri
Kettunen from Helsinki University.
From the year 2002 since BOVA coordinators in agricultural
universities started coordination and collaboration activities, few
brand new activities occurred between BOVA universities. Established
NOVA-BOVA networks in some scientific disciplinary fields had meetings
and discussions. Working group for joint MSc programmes is going to
generate common MSc programme between Baltic Universities. Working
group for External Fund raising scanned project ideas & searched
for potential donors.
In autumn 2002, the NOVA University reached a special
agreement with NorFA on support of Baltic PhD students in NOVA courses
using NorFA mobility scholarships. The central secretariats and BOVA
coordinators have elaborated a well functioning procedure of
approaching NOVA course organisers, informing PhD students at BOVA
universities and providing administrative support. Organisers of NOVA
PhD courses have generally been very positive to engage the Baltic
students, deserving special gratitude from secretariats and the BOVA
universities.
The first NOVA-BOVA conference �Building up International
Study and Research Networks between the NOVA and BOVA Universities� was
arranged in October 16-18 in Vilnius, Lithuania. The conference
involved around 90 representatives coming from all NOVA-BOVA member
universities. Conference was available thanks to the joint funding from
four different external donors: The Nordic Council of Ministers;
Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania;
Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation and The Royal Swedish
Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. Central secretariats were
successful with four applications that enabled participation of Nordic
partners at zero cost and Baltic partners only contributing the travel
expenses to Vilnius.
Last updated:
2005-09-18
