MIIC News

📢 Are you a student looking for a fall internship? We are looking for marketing/admin intern!

📚 Come join us as an intern to gain experience in an multicultural NGO working in international education.

🔵 An ideal candidate is:
– Interested in international education, NGO/non-profit work, and/or marketing and administrative work
– A student based in or closed to Prague looking for an internship and available starting in September
– Comfortable communicating in English
– Is organized and has basic competences in social media marketing, Canva, and ideally WordPress.
– Curious, open, and willing to learn new things

📬 Interested? Contact Lucy Roberts at lucy.roberts@miic.world to apply. Please send your CV in English and a short letter of motivation.

⭐ Note: This is an unpaid/voluntary internship. It is ideal for students looking for an internship to fulfill their study requirements or to gain volunteer/work experience before graduating.

We are pleased to invite the MIIC community to the second annual International Students ‘Conference on Social Problems and Social Work in Europe, held at the University of Łódź from 25.05 – 27.05. 2026.

This unique international conference presents the outcomes of student projects, educational experiences, and research activities developed within European academic collaboration initiatives. Over the course of several days, participants will have the opportunity to explore the results of projects carried out by students, engage in discussions on innovative educational practices, and learn about international research initiatives addressing contemporary social and democratic challenges.

We’ve just wrapped the third and final day of our Mestenhauser Academy for Leadership in Internationalization! We are so grateful to our partner in the project, Czech Technical University in Prague

We began the day with a World Cafe led by Martin Považan, Dr. Renata Tomaskova, and Dr. Nadege Firsova. Participants worked with three experts and three thematic spotlights, co-creating group outcomes and rotating around the room.

The final module of the program discussed evidence-based decision making, led by Dr. Jos Beelen and Dr. Darla K. Deardorff.

We concluded the program with reflections from participants and discussing how we can bring what we’ve learned back to our home institutions.

☀️ Thank you so much to everyone who joined this program over these amazing three days! At the Mestenhauser Institute, we always aim to build programs that help build a more interconnected world and it was such a pleasure to be joined by amazing trainers and participants who share this goal!

We will see you next year for the 2027 Leadership Academy!

We were honored to share our experience with building inclusive international partner communities at the STAR Scholars Network 2026 Internationalization of Higher Education, Digital Transformation, and Academic Diplomacy (iHED) conference as keynote speakers.

Eva Janebova, Katherine Wimpenny, and Lucy Roberts spoke on Using Professional Learning Communities for Collaboration in International Projects in a panel moderated by Aicha ADOUI, Ph.D.

We are happy to share our work in our Horizon Europe YOUROPE project. Thank you to STAR Scholars and Eva Janebova, STAR Scholars Country Director for the Czech Republic for inviting us.

MIIC continues to support young people in becoming active European citizens and building democracy with a new Horizon Europe project: DEMOCREATE. The project is funded by the European Commission and builds on our work with our YOUROPE project. DEMOCREATE is lead by Coventry University and aims to transform European democracy education through community-led research and action.

We are excited to continue working with Katherine Wimpenny, Dr. Kayden J Schumacher, Sanna Ruhalahti, Javid Jafarov, Laurence Guérin, Enrique Blanco Villarreal, Dr. Naomi van Stapele, Anna Jarkiewicz, Halkoaho Arja, Knowledge Innovation Centre, Lucija Vihar, and to bring in a new partner to help strengthen this work in the Czech Republic, the National Accreditation Bureau for Higher Education (including Prof. Jaroslav Miller and Petr Černikovský). Thank you to Coventry University for all of your effort on submitting this project and we are very grateful to be a part of it!

MIIC colleague Lucy Roberts recently represented the institute at the 2026 Cross-Border Dialogue Conference in Mikulov, Czech Republic, a conference and design-thinking hackathon designed for students and young professionals.

As a young professional in international education, she worked on the challenge of building cross-border learning hubs with conference challenge partner EduVision and their ARCHIMEDES outdoor classrooms. This was a great opportunity to discuss challenges in education and imagine a future where students across borders can connect even more.

CEEDUCON 2025, organized by the Czech National Agency for International Education and Research, was a very eventful time at the Mestenhauser Institute! To kick off CEEDUCON 2025, MIIC and some of our higher education experts hosted a networking event for HE professionals interested in internationalization and building transatlantic connections. The event was hosted by Professor Jaroslav Miller at the National Accreditation Bureau for Higher Education. Speakers included Dr. Darla K. Deardorff, Dr. Jos Beelen, Dr. Harvey Charles, and Dr. Eva Janebova. We were joined by many familiar faces in the MIIC community, but many new people as well! We are grateful to everyone who attended and to NAU for hosting us.

MIIC Experts Lenka Henebergova, Eva Janebova, Harvey Charles, and Jos Beelen also led a panel on the role of international education in responding to current geopolitical issues. Participants found the session to be provocative and stimulating and provided the highest reviews at the end of the session.

On 12-13 November, the YOUROPE team gathered at Coventry University’s Brussels hub. We reviewed our first year and planned what comes next.

Two days of collaboration

• Reflected on a year of learning
• Strengthened our research methods (CLRAs and CLRA Coils)
• Met with our project officers to discuss progress
• Planned the work ahead

Young researchers are leading change
Since we started only a year ago, dozens of young researchers have investigated the issues that matter to them:

• disappearing community spaces
• mental health
• discrimination
• cyberbullying
• their visions for Europe’s future

Their voices have been heard locally, captured in poetry collections, and amplified at the Council of Europe. They’ve challenged assumptions and shown what youth-led democracy looks like in practice.

What’s next:
We’ve built solid foundations. Now, with two more years ahead, we’ll deepen our work and create even more space for young people to lead.

The best is yet to come. 🌟

The Mestenhauser Institute is excited to launch our our new program, the Mestenhauser Academy for International Leadership. This is a comprehensive four-month evidence-based professional development experience in leadership of institution-wide internationalization. Participants will gain skills with the support of internationally recognised trainers and guest speakers from the practice.

The 2026 program will take place during the following dates:

• May 15th-17th, 2026 (in-person)
• April/May/September (online, dates TBA)

The program is open to Vice Rectors, Vice Deans for Internationalization, Policy Advisors, and Senior Internationalization Officers who may choose to bring their International Office Directors with them.

Applications are now open! You can apply using this link, or you can learn more at https://miic.world/mestenhauser-leadership-academy/.

The Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at Charles University (FSEV UK) recently hosted MIIC’s Founding Director, Dr. Eva Janebova at their course Energy Policy and Energy Security in the EU.

Eva joined them for both a lecture and a seminar, followed by thoughtful discussions, and provided them, as teachers, with valuable feedback on their teaching practices with the objective of internationalizing the curriculum.

Internationalisation of studies is about more than welcoming students from abroad—it enriches learning by bringing diverse perspectives, fostering cross-cultural collaboration, and enhancing teaching practices. By embedding these principles in their course, FSEV aims to:

• Enhance curriculum quality and relevance for both Slovak and international students.
• Promote inclusive, engaging teaching practices that meet diverse learning needs.
• Support student well-being and integration, creating a collaborative and stimulating learning environment. We are excited to implement these insights and continue providing our students with a truly enriching educational experience.

Thank you to FSEV UK for inviting us!