University ST. Kliment Ohridski – Bitola, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality – Ohrid
Универзитет Св. Климент Охридски -Битола, Факултет за туризам и угостителство – Охрид
St Kliment Ohridski University – Bitola (UKLO) is the second oldest state University in FYROM and the most important HEI in the south-western region of the country. It is seated in Bitola, but some of its 12 higher-education and scientific-research units (UKLO structure: 10 faculties, 1 higher vocational school and 1 scientific research institute) are located in other cities. Since its foundation (1979) UKLO has provided higher education for over 30.000 graduates. Currently operating with about 12.000 students in the three cycles of education system and with approximately 2.500 newly enrolled per academic year, UKLO is among the medium-sized, comprehensive universities and offers a range of studies in the area of Economics, Biotechnical and Technical Sciences and ICT, Tourism, Education, Health Care, Law Studies and Security.
In a rapidly changing world, UKLO strives to keep up with the latest trends in the area of internationalization involving bilateral cooperation agreements with renowned universities worldwide, entering relations of cooperation for the purpose of realization of international academic and scientific-research projects, participation in EC-funded programs (TEMPUS, ERASMUS, ERASMUS MUNDUS, FP-7, CEEPUS, IPA-CBC etc) Also, the functioning of UKLO, through its constituent units, and taking into consideration the increased number of doctoral dissertations, is to a certain degree built upon the principle of bringing together the two fundamental activities – academic and scientific-research.
Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality in Ohrid (FTU) is one of the oldest higher education institutions in the field of tourism on the Balkans with more than 45 years (since 1970) research and educational experience. The Faculty is one of the founders of UKLO and has been its member since 1979. FTU offers three cycles of studies in tourism – Bachelor, Master and Doctoral level of education.
FTU study programs are modern and designed to meet the dynamic needs of the tourism labor market. The teaching curricula at the Department of Tourism consists of different scientific disciplines and offer possibilities for constant improvement of tourism in the Republic of Macedonia by acquiring professional experts capable to confront the challenges of current tourism processes. This program provides knowledge by using modern tourism research methodologies and trains students to apply comprehensive approaches in work processes and activities equipping them to recognize novel scientific results that can be implemented as applicative solutions in practice. For that purpose involvement of a great team of academic and professional staff contributes to students’ specialization in tourism enabling them to understand the nature of tourism as complex socio-economic activity.
UKLO as PP6 at the WetMainAreas project has to contribute to the implementation of all the activities foreseen by the project including all the five WPs. The most important is the assessment of wetland connectivity in the FYROM part of pilot site Vardar/Axios beyond the boundaries of protected areas and national borders, in order to improve knowledge on ecological connectivity and transnational ecosystems’ integration in the BalkanMed territory.