The International Affairs Office (CAINT) promoted, on May 9th, the lecture “Surfaces: a link between manufacture and function”, given by Dr. Wieslaw Antoni Grabon, from the Faculty of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering of Rzeszów University of Technology's (RUT), Poland.

In addition to giving the lecture, Prof. Grabon met with representatives from the Research and Graduate Studies Office and from the undergraduate and graduate programs in Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Engineering. Prof. Grabon also visited laboratories at Escola de Minas between May 06th and 10th.

It was the last planned mobility for the second Erasmus + Program project with the Polish institution. The partnership began in 2016, when UFOP was granted by the Program with the mobility of an administrative staff, a master's student and five professors, as well as the reception of two Polish professors. In 2018 the second project was approved and in total there were 17 international academic mobilities, six of them in 2019.

Professors Katiane de Oliveira Pinto Coelho Nogueira (Department of Biological Sciences), Orlando David Henrique dos Santos (Department of Pharmacy), Paulo Santos Assis (Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering), Carlos Magno de Souza Paiva (Department of Law), Rodrigo Fernando Bianchi (Department of Physics), Alberto de Freitas Castro Fonseca (Department of Environmental Engineering), Eneida Maria Eskinazi Sant'Anna (Department of Biodiversity, Evolution and Environment) and Guilherme Jorge Brigolini Silva ( Department of Civil Engineering), the Executive Secretary Jaqueline Schultz, and the student of the Academic Master’s in Materials Engineering, Katerine Grazielle Silva were awarded by the program at UFOP.

From Rzeszów University of Technology, professors Tomasz Ruman and Joanna Niziol (Faculty of Chemistry), Wieslaw Antoni Grabon (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering), and RUT Erasmus+ Coordinator, Monika Stanisz, were awarded by the program. In April 2019, Monica gave a lecture on how to draft Erasmus + projects in order to guide and encourage the academic community to develop and submit future projects to receive funding from the European Union (EU).

The mobilities involved visits to laboratories, meetings with Rectors, Vice-Rectors, professors and administrative sectors, and also seminar presentations aimed at strengthening the ties of academic cooperation in order to enable collaboration between the two universities in teaching, research and extension.

The partnership with Rzeszów University of Technology is of great importance to UFOP. Besides being the beginning of formal cooperation with Poland through a prestigious institution, it has also been an excellent opportunity for us to gain experience in developing and managing Erasmus + projects. The professors have already started joint research, new projects are being developed and a cooperation network has been formed. It contributes significantly to the internationalization of the University. We are waiting for the outcome of the evaluation of a third Erasmus + project with RUT and we hope we have good news soon.