General
TANDEMS of master students from UGent and UKLO collaborate under mentorship of asst. prof. dr. Renata Petrevska Nechkoska for UKLO and her co-supervision with supervision of prof. dr. Geert Poels from UGent Belgium are working on mutual topics in master thesis research but from two different aspects - the Macedonian/Western Balkans and Belgian/EU.
The challenges are great and the collaboration emerges with remarkable contributions to science and practice and to co-evolution of all involved parties and countries.
Alongside the tandems, the team of supervisor/co-supervisor Geert Poels & Renata Petrevska Nechkoska collaborate on master thesis at UGent, challenging and fruitful mentorship and guidance.
Upon the invitation of the National Bank of Republic of North Macedonia, professor Renata Petrevska Nechkoska and her supervised ‘tandem’ of master students from Belgium and North Macedonia have participated in the component 1 of the twinning project “Strengthening of the institutional capacities of the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia in the process of its accession to the European System of Central Banks. The first activity in the previous week has been through working meetings with the Mission of National Bank of Belgium (Ms. Anne Chamberod, Mr. Michiel Van Acoleyen) in the component for “Enhancement of NBRNM framework for licensing and supervision of payment institutions and E-money institutions and licensing and oversight of payment systems”, where the Belgian advisors communicated extensive firsthand experiences, advice and guidelines to the team of the hosts - Igor Velichkovski, Director of Payment Systems Department at the NBRNM and his team.
Through the Innovation Gate (Порта за иновации), a recently established platform for communication with the fin-tech industry, NBRNM recognised the collaboration potential of asst.prof. Petrevska Nechkoska’s mentoring of master students working on thesis of change management and the EU Payment Services Directive 2 in Macedonia (Martin Trajkovski) and in Belgium (Quinten Meuleman). The interesting setup of ‘tandems’ enables master students from the two universities to collaborate, working on similar topic from different country- and regional- aspects (EU and Western Balkans), which was a perfect functional bridge for involvement in the twinning project. The tandem master students are under supervision of asst. prof. Renata Petrevska Nechkoska (Faculty of Economics Prilep, University St. Kliment Ohridski Bitola, North Macedonia), along with her co-supervision with the mentor prof. dr. Geert Poels (MIS Department, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Ghent Belgium), are introduced by the two professors as a novel way on how to establish collaborations between universities and countries via couples of master students exchanging research, knowledge, excellence and contextual differences towards value co-creation and co-evolution. In the pilot year, tens of students applied for tandems, and a dozen have started, on diverse range of topics that combine managerial and informational aspects in broad range of domains, such as banking, in this case. The master students are supported by extended network of professors, enlisting prof. dr. Olivera Kostoska, prof. dr. Gjorgji Manceski and prof. dr. Dragica Odjaklieska on the side of UKLO, and FEB professors from UGENT. The collaboration within the twinning project will also incorporate presentations of the work being done by the master students in the dissemination conferences of the project, as well as interviews, action design research and collaboration with the two National Banks - of North Macedonia and Belgium, commercial banks, third party providers and other stakeholders in both countries and managers - to effectuate with proper change management workflow and components very relevant for the banking systems both in EU and in accession countries.
TANDEMS of master students from UGent and UKLO collaborate under mentorship of asst. prof. dr. Renata Petrevska Nechkoska for UKLO and her co-supervision with supervision of prof. dr. Geert Poels from UGent Belgium are working on mutual topics in master thesis research but from two different aspects - the Macedonian/Western Balkans and Belgian/EU.
The challenges are great and the collaboration emerges with remarkable contributions to science and practice and to co-evolution of all involved parties and countries. Here is our newest tandem of Anouk (from UGENT) and Luciano (from UKLO) and insights into their collaboration so far!