«International University Cooperation on Land Protection in European-Asiatic Countries – IUCLAND»

561841-EPP-1-2015-1-IT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP «International University Cooperation on Land Protection in European-Asiatic Countries – IUCLAND»

International Summer School on LAND DEGRADATION AND SUSTAINABLE LAND USE Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovak Republic

Summer school titled  “Land Degradation in Slovakia” took place at Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra from June 26 to July 1, 2017. Professor, head of department “Biotechnology’  Saparbekova Almira  and the students of  Biotechnology department KhussanovaUmida ,Kurbaniyazova Dina and Assan Aisulu participated.
Summer school was officially opened on June 26, 2017 by the local coordinator of the IUCLAND project, prof. Anna Bandlerová together with the supervisor of the summer school, prof. PavolBielek. Participants of the summer school were given basic information about the program, organizational issues, and final exam. During 6 days of summer school in Nitra, 15 lecturers from Slovakia and abroad delivered 17 lectures dealing with various topics related to land degradation and related issues.
Inseparable part of the program was field trip to University farm in Kolínany. The first part of the field trip involved visit of the unique and experimental Biogas station. In the next part of the field trip, participants visited the field with fast-growing plants. Summer school was officially concluded by prof. Bandlerová and prof. Bielek. During the final ceremony, students received certificate of attendance and transcript of records.

International Summer School on Land degradation in Italy

1stInternational Summer School on Land degradationwas held 5-10 June   2017 at Molise University, Campobasso, Italy. Professor Saparbekova Almira and the students of  Biotechnology department Akhmetova Aigerim, Irsaliyeva Sabina and Saduakassova Maira participated from SKSU.
Summer school was officially opened on June 5th, 2017 by the local coordinator of the IUCLAND project, prof. Angelo Belliggiano together with the directors of the summer school, prof. Claudio Colombo and prof. Elisabetta Salimei. The courses consisted in lectures, after lectures discussions, and a final field trip in conservative agriculture farm places.The duration of summer school was 6 working days, 40 hours.During 6 days of summer school in Campobasso, 15 lecturers from Italy and abroad delivered 5 lectures including prof Saparbekova Almira Amangeldiena  were dealing about various topics related to land degradation and related issues.
The last day of the summer school was dedicated to field trip in conservative farm. At the end of field trip, there was final ceremony, where students received certificate of attendance.

561841-EPP-1-2015-1-IT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP «International University Cooperation on Land Protection in European-Asiatic Countries – IUCLAND»
Eligibility period: 01.01.2015-31.12.2017

IUCLAND – International University Cooperation on Land Protection in European-Asiatic Countries, is an educational project funded by Erasmus+ Program under the Key Action 2 on “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices”.
The aim of IUCLAND is to foster international cooperation among partner Universities through the implementation of training activities (namely summer schools and workshops) dedicated to the topic of Land Degradation. Indeed, the project promotes international cooperation at both regional and cross-regional level, by allowing the interaction among European, Far East Asian and Central Asian partners.
Coherently with the regional and international effort at political level, IUCLAND proposes to improve the effectiveness of development and land protection strategies by increasing cooperation capacity and best practices productivity, though educational patterns involving Higher Education Institutions and all potential stakeholders, (e.g. farmers’ association).
In particular, along its three years implementation period, the IUCLAND project consortium pursues the following goals:

• to substantially increase the quantity and quality of the international education in land degradation curricula in EU and Asiatic  Country,
• to provide MSc and PhD students critical thinking skills in the arena of Soil Monitoring and Soil Protection, and
• to build and improve mutually beneficial, collaborative relationships among all the partner universities to facilitate research, higher education, and outreach in the areas of natural resource management.   

About land degradation
Degradation of land resources is a growing problem in the Eurasian region and determines increasing patterns of land degradation costs. As a result, over the past few decades there has been a significant increase in international cooperation on natural resource protection issues, including educational efforts. Soil and land degradation refers to all process(es) by which soil declines in quality.
Following the 1972 United Nations Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm, cooperation on environment and natural resources management plays a relevant role in global environmental education. The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 raised awareness about environment and an enhanced natural resources management.
Central Asian Countries and China are dramatically challenged by soil degradation problems. Desertification, i.e. degradation of soil leading to conditions characteristic of deserts, is a process that often begins in times of severe drought, when land cannot adequately balance human pressures and overuse pushes the land to the brink. Drought and desertification affect all countries in Central Asia: as much as 66% of the land area of Kazakhstan and nearly 90% of the Kyrgyz Republic's agricultural land. This prompted Central Asia countries to ratify the UN Convention on Desertification (1994), develop and implement National Action Plans (NAPs) to face the phenomenon, promote the formation of a regional initiative, the Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management (CACILM, 2006), a partnership between Central Asian countries and international donor community. In China, more than 40% of arable land is suffering from degradation as a result of environmental conditions and inappropriate human management, seriously reducing its capacity to produce food for the world's biggest population.
Despite this evidence and some significant achievements, international and regional cooperation is still facing with a number of challenges. Reducing soil degradation in Europe and in Asian countries requires an optimal use of natural and human resources, respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems.

Partners
The project will foster international cooperation at both regional level and across-regions level, by allowing the interaction among European, Far East Asian and Central Asian partners. The project Consortium is composed by twelve partners, namely:

Three European Academic Institutions:
UNIMOL - UniversitàdegliStudidel Molise (IT)
SUA - Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (SK)
FAZ - University of Zagreb Faculty of Agriculture (HR)

Seven from Asia:

HZAU - Huazhong Agricultural University (RPC)
ISSAS - Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences(RPC)
FJNU - Fujian Normal University (RPC)
KSTU - Kyrgyz state technical university named after IskhaakRazzakov (KGZ)
OshTU - Osh Technological University named after the academician M. M. Adyshev (KGZ)
EKSTU - Serikbayev East-Kazakhstan state technical university (KAZ)
SKSU - M.Auezov South Kazakhstan State University (KAZ)

and two counselling partners from Italy (FORMIT - Fondazione per la RicercasullaMigrazione e IntegrazionedelleTecnologie , STG - Studio Giuliano)

The intent of this initiative is to mutually enhance education, research, and outreach capabilities in the field of Land Degradation, as well as to strengthen the relations between higher education and the wider economic and social environment.
Professor Claudio Colombo is the Coordinator of the IUCLAND project. He is full professor of Soil Science at Molise University (Italy), he took his Ms. Degree in Agronomy Science at Naples University in 1986 and  his Ph.D. in Soil Science at the University of Cordoba (Spain) in 1993.
Events
IUCLAND Kick-off Meeting - Nanjing, 2016
The Kick-off Meeting of the IUCLAND project has been held in Nanjing (RPC) from January 12th to January 15th, 2016. The event has officially launched the activities of the project and constituted a precious occasion for the partners to meet and lay the basis for a fruitful cooperation. The first day of the meeting introduced the key elements of the project in terms of Work Packages and key roles and responsibilities that will be implemented for the management of all project activities. During the second days, detailed presentations were given concerning the administrative and financial procedures. Finally, during the third day of the meeting, project partners addressed some more operative contents, with discussions on the key features of workshops and summer schools and indications on the key steps of the monitoring process.

First Steering Committee Meeting – SLOVAKIA - NITRA, June 2016

The First Steering Committee Meeting was held on June 14th and 15th (2016) at the University of Agriculture in Nitra (SUA). During the meeting, the welcome address was given by the vice-dean of the Faculty of European Studies and Regional Development, Anna Bandlerová (SUA), and by the Project Manager, Professor Claudio Colombo from UNIMOL.
Then, Professor Colombo kick-started the works of the Steering Committee by introducing the objectives of the meeting and the state of the project, before leaving the floor to the WP leaders who presented in details the key elements of the work package of their competence, the activities already implemented and the upcoming ones for the first year of the project.
This meeting was a precious occasion to analyze the state of the project, discuss relevant organizational issues and prepare the activities to be implemented during the following year, while fostering formal and informal relationships among partners. The Second Steering Committee Meeting will be held in Ust-Kamenogorsk (Kazakhstan) on May, 2017.

Ust-Kamenogorsk Steering Committee Meeting

The Second Steering Committee Meeting of the IUCLAND Project was held at East Kazakhstan State Technical University (EKSTU) in Ust-Kamenogorsk on May 10th - 11t, 2017.
The first day of the Steering Committee Meeting started with the welcome address given by the vice-rector of East Kazakhstan State Technical University, Prof. Oleg Gavrilenko. Project Manager, Prof. Claudio Colombo from University of Molise (UNIMOL), after introducing the objectives of the meeting, started from the presentation of the Interim Report's structure and contents by emphasizing the importance of such document in assessing the progress of the project, in identifying eventual deviations from the work plan, problems and possible corrective actions and, finally, in focusing on the first financial figures. Then Prof. Colombo left the floor to the representatives of the partners leading the project work packages that presented the state of art of implementation of each work package by pointing out the activities already realized. In the afternoon session Prof. Colombo informed IUCLAND partners about the results of EACEA monitoring visit in the Kirghiz and Kazak universities.
In the first part of the second day, the Project Manager invited consortium partners to present the info days and workshops already held or planned in the next months. The second part of the second day was dedicated to the presentation of the summer schools, considering that three of them will be reаlized in 2017 while the other three are scheduled for the third year of the project (2018). Another topic that was discussed during the afternoon was the process related to the definition of the credits and its deadlines.
The meeting concluded with the visit of EKSTU laboratories and giving all the partners the occasion to have an overview of the research activities are carried out in different scientific fields by the hosting university.
   Workshops
During the project implementation, 11 workshops on different topics related to Land Degradation will be organized by the project partners. The workshops will be delivered in remote mode as online webinars and will involve professors and researchers from partners universities in order to share knowledge about summer schools-related topics.

• 1st IUCLAND Workshop "Land Evolution and degradation in Italy: the key indicator to monitor landscape vulnerability and degradation risk" -December 1st, 2016 starting at at h. 9.00 CET
• 2nd IUCLAND Workshop "Land Degradation in Slovakia" - February 15th, 2017 starting at at h. 9.00 CET
• 3rd IUCLAND Workshop "Land degradation in Kyrgyzstan is one of the factors of the biodiversity reduction"- March 9th, 2017 starting at h. 9.00 CET

Summer Schools
Summer schools will be organized during the second and third year of project activities and will target students and researchers of the partner universities. In particular, per each academic partner three students and one professors will be selected to take part in each summer school.
By the end of the project period six summer schools will have been delivered, one for each country of project partners, namely one in Italy (2017), one in Slovakia (2017), one in Kyrgyzstan (2017), one in Croatia (2018), one in Kazakhstan (2018) and one in China (2018).
Info days
Info days will be organized to promote students and stakeholders participation by informing students about the IUCLAND project and the available open calls for training available, as well by involving all potential stakeholders in the proposed activities. Info days will take place at Academic partners' premises and will contribute to maximize the impact of the project actions.
25th of November 2015, M.Auezov SKSU, 127А. 
Theme of info day «Introduction to the project «International University Cooperation on Land Protection in European-Asiatic Countries - IUCLAND»
This info day was devoted to introduction of students, candidates for a master's degree, candidates for a doctor's degree, teachers’ staff and directories of university with the aims, purposes and project-partners.
6th of April, 2017., M.Auezov SKSU, 127А
Theme of info day «Problems of Land Degradation in the Republic of Kazakhstan»
This info day was organized in the framework of IUCLAND program on which students made the reports concerning Land Degradation in Kazakhstan.