This meeting of consortium members was held at the University of Latvia that is the project coordinator. The consortium demonstrates a vast geographical diversity of participants: with the delegation of KNRTU, University of Latvia hosted colleagues from Moscow and Ekaterinburg as well as the representatives of universities from Armenia, Belarus, Finland, Poland and the United Kingdom.

The delegation of Kazan National Research Technological University was represented by Dr. Julia Ziyatdinova, chair, Department of Foreign Languages for Professional Communication and Dr. Artem Bezrukov, Associate Professor, Department of Physical and Colloidal Chemistry. This meeting summarized the first year of the project implementation in 2018-2019 and finalized the working plan for the forthcoming project implementation period in 2020-2021.

The first year of the project implementation was active in analysis and preparation: the PhD student training systems were studied in the European Union universities, which are the members of the consortium. It was analyzed how best European practices can be implemented at KNRTU. The project was also actively disseminated at the university, national and international levels (Russian and international conferences, KNRTU website and paper, events organized by Erasmus+ National Office in Russia, and etc.).

The plan for the next year is to continue active project implementation: to modernize training of PhD students in natural sciences, the following education modules will be developed at KNRTU: an interdisciplinary module in natural sciences with the focus on chemistry and modules in intercultural communication and research commercialization.

One of the future consortium meetings is planned to be hosted by KNRTU. This meeting is scheduled for December 2020. Our university will be visited by the representatives of top Russian and European universities such as University of Helsinki, Finland, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and etc.

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

⚹The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.