Project news

"Think Globally, Act Locally": the kickoff conference of the “Silver Age” project

On 4 October, the international scientific kickoff conference of the Silver Age project* was held at the IKBFU. The motto of the conference is “Think Globally, Act Locally”, which aims to expand the access of seniors from the border regions of Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Region of the Russian Federation to educational services thereby contributing to the preservation and maintenance of active longevity.
The ”Silver Age” project is implemented within the Lithuania-Russia Cross-Border Cooperation Programme 2014-2020, and is financed by the European Union and the Russian Federation. In this project, the IKBFU’s partners are Kaliningrad Regional Scientific Library (Russia) and Marijampole Petras Kriauciunas Public Library (Lithuania).

The IKBFU’s premises became the face-to-face venue for the conference. Lithuanian partners participated in the conference remotely. Senior learners of the first cohort of the English Language Course were also able to participate in the conference via online connection.

Maxim Demin, the IKBFU’s Vice-Rector for Research, welcomed the participants of the conference and noted that the “Silver Age” project has a socio-educational orientation and is aimed at maintaining an active life and realizing the potential of a person at any age.


Speaking about the relevance of the “Silver Age” project, Olga Kim, Deputy Rector for International Affairs and Strategic Communications of the IKBFU, highlighted that the university will continue to initiate discussions on the Silver Age topic at various international venues with the participation of not only European but also Asian partners.

Elena Lebedeva, Head of the Department of European Programmes and Foreign Economic Relations of the Agency for International and Interregional Relations of the Kaliningrad Region, emphasized that the “Silver Age” project has become particularly relevant in the context of the coronavirus pandemic since it directly contributes to the social integration and communication development of people of Silver Age in the border regions of Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Region, currently implementing 38 projects under the Cross-border Cooperation Programme.

Tatiana Shitikova, Head of the Kaliningrad Branch of the Joint Technical Secretariat of the Russia-Lithuania 2014-2020 Cross-Border Cooperation Programme, congratulated the conference participants on the start of their work and expressed hope that the “Silver Age” project will be successfully implemented and will be continued in the future international programs.

All in all, at the kickoff conference, 12 reports were presented, in which project participants from all partner organizations spoke about the role of partners in the implementation of project activities, about the development and conduct of educational courses for seniors in both countries, about the preparation of unique educational products for learning English, about the methodology of teaching adult learners, about the full-text electronic library of the Kaliningrad Regional Scientific Library as a platform for information interaction with the Marijampole Petras Kriauciunas Public Library. Electronic presentations of the reports are available on the site of the project.

The minutes of the kickoff meeting are also available in three languages ​​(Russian, Lithuanian, English).


* The full name of the project: "Silver Age: Cross-Border Social Integration through Education".

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