Did you know that Tbilisi State University and the University of Zurich have a parallel study module for undergraduate students? Did you know that within the framework of this course, which is taught alternately by Georgian and Swiss lecturers, TSU students specializing in human geography can establish close relations with each other and improve their scientific skills, including through a special application (Mountain - MTA), which introduces the Swiss to the mountains of Georgia, and the Georgians to the Alps? The most important thing is that Gvantsa Salukvadze, a TSU graduate, is actively involved in all this, and today she is an affiliated researcher of the University of Zurich.

Despite her age, Gvantsa has already achieved many successes in her field: Doctor of Human Geography (doctorate awarded in January 2023); winner of Forbes 30 Under 30 2021 in the category of science; the initiator of numerous international projects at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of TSU.

“The first connection between the Human Geography Departments of TSU and the University of Zurich is associated with my visit to my host mentor - Prof. Dr. Norman Backhaus at the University of Zurich in 2017. As a result of the fruitful collaboration, Prof. Backhaus soon became the official co-supervisor of my thesis, and I joined his research group and have been an affiliated researcher at the University of Zurich since 2020. As a result of our successful collaboration and the desire to create precedent-setting projects together, the extended research group was formed, which is currently implementing various initiatives, including the “Sustainable Mountain Development” training course.

The creation of the course was funded by the Swiss government as an innovation of both universities in the field of social sciences in higher education. The course is run in parallel, in a hybrid mode at both universities and unites undergraduate students. The aim of the module is to provide students with a broad conceptual and research-based knowledge of the principles and characteristics of sustainable mountain development, using the examples of the Alps and the Caucasus (students get to know the contexts of both countries), as well as the discourses produced about mountain regions and the ways of responding to current challenges (e.g., climate change, tourism, migration). To achieve this, the course will be divided into thematic lecture weeks, and will be led alternately by Georgian and Swiss lecturers,” says the young researcher. The website of the course is: https://www.mountainapp.net/

It is noteworthy that in parallel with the work on the creation of the course, the Georgian-Swiss research group won the Innovation Grant Competition of the University of Zurich. Within the framework of the project, based on the concept of “citizen science,” a digital platform for cross-border education - mobile application “MountainApp” (abbreviation MTA - mountain in Georgian) was created. The project team includes from the University of Zurich - Dr. Annina Michel, Professor Norman Backhaus, from the Tbilisi State University - Temur Gugushvili, Professor Ioseb Salukvadze and Gvantsa Salukvadze.

“The application was developed in Switzerland by the SPOTTERON company. The abbreviation MTA, of course, has a purposeful meaning, and the team’s idea was that all Swiss students should know the Georgian name of the place about which they would receive so much information. The main goal of this was to break down geographical barriers and deepen the interaction between Swiss and Georgian students. This application helps students improve transferable skills such as intercultural and scientific communication. Considering that the training course is full of innovative practical tasks and activities, MTA is also actively used in the training process. In particular, the various features of the application (including access in offline mode, automatic geolocation, etc.) are designed to collect, share and analyze information about different types of settlements. Students have specific tasks in which they have to share different landscapes and record specific information about each one (both closed and open-ended questions), including what connects them to the place, what makes it special, what is authentic about it, etc. As part of this, they share their visions of specific places and landscapes, their perceptions of specific environments, collecting, creating and sharing information in the application. The MTA application provides a creative link between students and lecturers in qualitative research related to digital, innovative teaching. This allows students to acquire practical skills using different methods,” says Gvantsa.

Since both the training course and the MTA application were used for the first time in a pilot format in the fall semester of 2022, both the application and the course are currently being updated in accordance with the students’ feedback and will be improved in the fall semester of 2023, considering the students’ wishes and opinions. In this process, a number of foreign universities have contacted us in order to share experience with the mentioned course and the use of the MTA application in it. In the near future, the group of researchers, including Gvantsa, will publish an article to share the accumulated knowledge and experience in innovative teaching methods with a wider audience. If you are interested, you can read the blogs published jointly by Swiss and Georgian students at https://www.mountainapp.net/blog. Find the application: MTA on App store: https://lnkd.in/e7Y_2Zeh, MTA on Google Play: https://lnkd.in/eUABfMC6.