ALINCO International Student Conference

On May 18, as the world celebrated International Museum Day, students and faculty from seven countries—including students from UzhNU—took part in the first ALINCO International Student Conference. There were 55 participants in total.

The conference was held under the auspices of the Ambassador of Peru to the Czech Republic, who addressed the conference participants with a welcoming speech.

The first day of the conference (May 18), which was conducted in English, began with a roundtable discussion featuring experts Paula Eredia, Šárka Prokešová, and Karina Vázquez, setting a reflective and interdisciplinary tone for the subsequent discussions.

Paula Eredia spoke about Clementina, Inc., a nonprofit organization she founded that implements programs aimed at developing education, culture, and international exchange in the small town of Suchitoto (El Salvador). Its flagship initiative is the Cinema Digital program, which teaches local youth the aesthetics and technologies of filmmaking using digital tools.Šárka Prokešová, who is the custodian of the Ethnographic Institute at the Moravian Regional Museum, also shared information about the museum’s activities.

Karina Vázquez, Director of the Community-Based Spanish Language Learning Program, presented her work within the scope of her research interests, which encompass Latin American literature, representations of labor, the biopolitics of emotions, as well as issues of food, cuisine, and domestic affairs. It was interesting to learn about her teaching, which combines theoretical approaches with practice-oriented learning through socially significant academic projects.

Overall, the event was moderated by Afina Alhazidu from Masaryk University (Czech Republic). The event was attended by the head of Masaryk University’s Language Center, Libor Štěpánek, who spoke at the conference’s opening ceremony. Antonina Bulyna, Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics, had the honor of co-moderating one of the sessions alongside Vilma Mahano. The presentations were also moderated by Ann Carr from the University of Azuay (Ecuador). The presentations were of a high academic standard in both content and delivery, covering a wide range of topics, including the role of cultural education, philosophical interpretations of culture, literary analysis, issues of memory and territorial identity, digital literacy in language learning, and the functions of memes in contemporary communication.

The conference lasted two days. On May 19, it continued in Spanish, further enriching the international and multilingual academic dialogue.

Overall, the conference served as a valuable platform for intellectual exchange, demonstrating the diversity of approaches and the high level of student research in the fields of language, culture, and communication.

As a reminder: UzhNU has been a co-founder of the unique international alliance of higher education institutions from 7 countries—ALINCO (Alliance for Internationalization and Collaboration in Higher Education)—since 2025. We are proud that cooperation among the founding universities themselves has been ongoing since 2023.

• International Activities