On Europe Day, on May 9, 2022, the Erasmus Office within the Department of International Relations launched the tenth edition of the already traditional event Erasmus International Week @ West University of Timişoara.

Declared a model of good practice at national level in 2019, held exclusively online in 2020 with over a hundred participants, the event continued to be organized with great enthusiasm and courage in 2021. And in 2022, with the return to the (new) normal, enjoyed extraordinary success among applicants from abroad who opted for UVT as a destination for a short-term training mobility in the field of internationalization of higher education.

A number of over 90 participants, teaching staff and administrative staff, coming from UVT's Erasmus partner universities from over 20 countries, from 4 continents, are meeting in Timisoara to discuss the future of the internationalization of higher education at a global level, in the context of the health and geopolitical crises of recent years. The countries represented at the event are: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Lithuania, Great Britain, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Spain, United States of America, Tunisia, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

This week's program includes training activities supported by experts from the National Agency for Community Programs in the Field of Education and Professional Training, as well as from the Western University of Timisoara. Among the topics that we propose to address to international participants are:

• international mobility in the new Erasmus+ program,
• digitization of teaching and learning processes and their impact on international relations in higher education,
• the European Universities initiative and UNITA European University, of which UVT is a founding member, or
• the objectives of the internationalization of education in crisis contexts (pandemic, geopolitical conflicts).

Also, the participants are engaged daily in activities that involve the exchange of best practices in terms of international cooperation in higher education (activities such as mutual learning workshop, mobility cafe, job shadowing), but also teaching activities in eight of the eleven faculties of UVT.

UVT redefines already known and established actions, such as Erasmus International Week @West University of Timişoara, adapting them to the new conditions and needs of higher education. Such actions bring added value to the professional experience of the participants from abroad, but also of the UVT colleagues who come into contact with them during the event. For the former, the Erasmus week represents a form of internationalization abroad, after a period in which access to physical international experiences was extremely limited. And for those from the West University of Timisoara, it represents another form of internationalization at home, which we encourage, as part of the institutional policy to create a multicultural, international and inclusive university environment at UVT. Also, the event provides a context conducive to the promotion of the West University of Timişoara and the city of Timişoara at a global level.