Faculty of Mining, Safety Engineering and Industrial Automation

The visit was held within the framework of the Erasmus+ project "Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction" (GeoDRR) - "GeoDRR Educational Workshops & Transnational Meeting Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan") and a short-term research and academic internship "Academic Internship at Xavier University", in January/February 2024.

Silesian University of Technology is the Leader of the GeoDRR project. Its goal is to launch a new specialization of 2nd degree studies "Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction" with the necessary laboratory facilities at six Asian universities. A course will be set up to train specialists in predicting, monitoring and analyzing the course of natural disasters. The new specialty will train highly specialized personnel prepared to forecast, monitor and analyze natural disasters and, in the event of their occurrence, to manage them, with a particular focus on ensuring the safety of victims and infrastructure.

The Erasmus+ Project "Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction" has been running since 2021. It involves 10 Partners: six Asian universities from the Philippines, Malaysia and Cambodia, universities from Spain and Greece, and an IT consulting company from Luxembourg. The coordinator of the Project since January 2022 is PhD Krzysztof Tomiczek of the Department of Geoengineering and Raw Materials Extraction.

During the visit to Xavier University in the Philippines, in addition to Dr. Krzysztof Tomiczek, the Silesian University of Technology was represented by Katarzyna Tobór-Osadnik, Prof. SUT, DSc, from the Department of Safety Engineering, Monika Żogała, PhD, from the Department of GaRME, and Marta Matyjaszek, PhD, from the College of Studies at the Silesian University of Technology, and remotely, Krzysztof Slota, PhD, from the Department of GaRME.

The first week of the visit included full-day workshops, trainings and lectures prepared by researchers from our Faculty and other European and Asian universities as part of the "GeoDRR Educational Workshops & Transnational Meeting Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan". Researchers from our Faculty prepared lectures on the topics of geomatics, seismicity, scientific research methodology, hazards and risk and safety management, also GIS (Geographic Information System) and strategies for running higher education.

During the second week, the "Academic Internship at Xavier University" carried out previously planned scientific, teaching and those promoting Silesian University of Technology and the Faculty of Mining, Safety Engineering and Industrial Automation. The visiting staff of our Faculty gave a series of lectures to Xavier University students.

The stay was followed by intensive activities related to the implementation of the GeoDRR program at two Philippine universities, due to critical formal procedures.

Due to the busy schedule of the workshops and the intensity of the activities, there was little time left to explore the lives of the Filipino people. The island on which the city of Cagayan de Oro is located is not a tourist destination and, in general, tourists visit this part of the Philippines rarely. As a result, it was possible to get a look at the daily lives of Filipinos, see natural beaches, take short hikes in the slightly mountainous, rainforest-covered Mapawa Nature Park, or get a perspective on the triculturalism of Northern Mindanao.