What do Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Spain and India have in common?
Bratislava, 2 April 2025 – Over the past six months, Comenius University Bratislava (CU) has significantly intensified its international outreach. These activities culminated in March, when we took part in higher education fairs in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Spain. We also participated in the prestigious APAIE 2025 conference in New Delhi, India.
Between 10 and 16 March 2025, our university was represented at the IEFT Spring Fairs in Turkey. The events took place in three Turkish cities (Izmir, Ankara, and Istanbul) and attracted around 15,000 visitors. This year, 160 universities and educational institutions from 30 countries took part - with CU participating for the very first time. The teams from the International Relations Office and the External Relations Office presented CU's English-language study programmes. Prospective students were particularly interested in programmes in business, natural sciences, and medicine.
From 18 to 21 March 2025, we participated in the SRT Eastern Europe Fair in Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. The events held in Sofia, Bucharest, and Athens attracted around 1,500 students from private secondary schools, many of whom expressed strong interest in studying abroad. The more intimate atmosphere of these fairs allowed for personal conversations with visitors, giving us the opportunity to better present the study options available at CU. The most sought-after programmes were Management and Law, Applied Informatics, Cognitive Science, and social science disciplines such as Psychology and International Relations.
International cooperation and knowledge exchange, including global citizenship, were the main themes of the prestigious APAIE 2025 conference held in New Delhi, India (APAIE stands for Asia-Pacific Association for International Education), one of the leading global events in the field of higher education. This year's edition took place from 24 to 28 March 2025. Slovakia was represented by a delegation from the Ministry of Education, accompanied by representatives from 14 public universities, including CU.
The final event of the month was the Saló de l'Ensenyament in Barcelona, Spain, which took place from 26 to 30 March 2025 at the Montjuïc exhibition grounds. This event in the Catalan capital saw a record turnout of more than 107,000 visitors. CU's stand attracted particular interest from students considering study programmes in Management, Social Sciences, and Medicine in English. Visitors appreciated the information about Bratislava as a safe and attractive city for students, as well as the vibrant extracurricular life CU offers.
We are confident that these intense months of international outreach of CU will bear fruit, and that we will see more students from across the world - including Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Spain, and India - at our September enrolment.
CU's participation in the international fairs and at the conference was financially supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic under the call "Support for projects promoting Slovak higher education institutions abroad."