CAPACITY BUILDING PROJECTS
Creation of the Graduate Curricula in Peace Studies in Georgia (PESTUGE)
This project contributes to the enhancement of teaching as well as training activities in Peace Studies at graduate level for students in Tbilisi and regional universities in conflict-affected areas. Academic courses taught at 4 HEIs and training cycles conducted at for students from Gori and Zugdidi will be aimed at increasing the level of knowledge and understanding concerning Peace processes not only in Georgia, but worldwide.
Specific objectives of the project are:
- provide targeted Georgian faculties with capacity development measures to enable them to meet European standards aligned with Bologna process;
- implement Peace Studies modules integrated in relevant academic programs at Georgian partner universities;
- equip Georgian universities with modern learning resources;
- establish the Institute for Peace Studies on the premises of Caucasus University and build a networks among the universities;
- further raise awareness and understanding of peace processes in conflict-affected regions of Georgia by conducting trainings for regional university students
Project Coordinator: Dublin City University
DARE project foresees to improve the access to and quality of inclusive higher education for minority ethnic groups, women in disadvantaged situations and in peripheral areas and disabled students in IL and GE by supporting institutional capacities through the reinforcement and provision of student support services at GE and IL partner HEIs in 4 main areas (child care, clinical and occupational psychological, learning and physical disabilities, academic support) and delivering a regulatory policy framework. The project also aims to enhance the access to education within and outside the classroom throughout a digital environment. Herein, courses already developed within the context of reinforcing the academic skills of target groups will be more accessible. The project reflects the importance to raise awareness on accessibility issues within IL and GE as well as the necessity to ensure the long-term effect impact of the project for the benefit of women in vulnerable situation, minority ethnic groups and disabled student population.
Project Coordinator: University of Haifa
The project HERITAG aims to develop an interdisciplinary reform in higher education programmes at master level and continuing education integrating Geo-information Technologies (GIT) applied to cultural heritage documentation, tourism management and entrepreneurship. The project promotes the synergy of three main groups of stakeholders: Universities, industry and Administration. The curricular reform integrates the development of capacities in 3 main national and regional priorities in Georgia and Armenia: Geo-information technologies, cultural heritage preservation and documentation, and fostering tourism business and entrepreneurship.
Specific goals of the project are:
- To create interdisciplinary master specialties in GIT for cultural heritage and tourism, integrating marketing and entrepreneurship skills oriented to consolidate local industry, following the guidelines of the Bologna process.
- To establish Geo information and Tourism Technology centers (GTTC) in partner countries - To create three new GIS laboratories in Tourism Economics Departments and to update existing equipment in partner country universities.
- To foster the continuous education in Higher Education institutions of current professionals by creating interdisciplinary training modules.
- To re-train academic staff in GIT, tourism management and entrepreneurship.
Project Coordinator: Universitat Politècnica de València
ABC – Assisting Better Communication”
Project aims to introduce (e.g. in Georgia) and enhance the profession of a Speech and Language Therapist in the participating countries through elaboration of quality courses offered at different levels of higher and professional education.
ABC initiative is focusing on four objectives and its corresponding directions. The main objectives are:
- Elaboration of the Content for SLT preparation program;
- Piloting of the SLT Curricula;
- Ensuring application of modern teaching methodology and
- Dissemination of the contemporary SLT issues.
Project Coordinator: Ilia State University
Action Research To Innovate Science Teaching & Career Orientation (ARTIST)
Action Research to Innovate Science Teaching & Career Orientation (ARTIST) - wants to improve science education and career orientation for the young generation. This shall be done by investing in the skills of science teachers concerning the evidence-based innovation of science teaching and promotion of career orientation. ARTIST intends to improve science education by promoting teacher skills in doing action research and small-scale innovation studies in science education in programme and partner countries across Europe and Asia. Jointly, the ARTIST consortium will develop teacher education courses and training materials to enable teachers to innovate their teaching based on self-generated evidence. Case studies for innovations in science teaching will be conducted and exchanged across the ARTIST consortium and beyond. ARTIST centers will be founded to act as centers of competence to support teachers and schools in their ongoing process of educational reform and innovation. ARTIST networks will be developed comprising universities, schools and business partners to support the process of curriculum innovation. Platforms will be established to support teachers and schools in these processes via the ARTIST website and the newly founded journal Action Research and Innovation in Science Education (ARISE).
Project Coordinator: University of Bremen
Investing in Entrepreneurial Universities in Caucasus and Central Asia (EUCA-INVEST)
This project is a concrete response to attempts of HE system reform that aims to adapt the education system to the new economic environment and increase the efficient use of material and human resources of universities. HEIs should review their own training process of graduates so that they can provide well-formed and competent graduates who will contribute actively to the development of their national economies.
Project specific objectives are:
- Dissemination of European best practices and preparation of documents necessary for enhancing I&E in HEIs through interaction between University-Enterprises in GE and KG.
- To set up, equip and network creative centres (CreaLABs) which support students and researchers to generate, develop, market and commercialize their own innovative ideas through entrepreneurship and open innovation in GE and KG.
- Improve skills and competencies of staff working at CreaLABs to support entrepreneurship.
- Design an intensive training program on teaching entrepreneurship for professors and students seeking to integrate effective and new methods of teaching entrepreneurship in the respective courses
- Create a network of professors and practitioners to encourage entrepreneurship and social innovation in beneficiary countries.
Project Coordinator: Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg
Educational for Drone (eDrone)
The main objective of the eDrone project is to provide higher education institutions in the Partner Countries with effective and efficient instruments to setup Offices for Education for Drones (OED), for the transferring of all the above mentioned knowledge to professionals of each Partner Country. Moreover, the project aims at realizing an innovative ICT-based infrastructure employing enhanced technologies and methodologies allowing all the Partner Countries to create a network for sharing educational contents and databases to professionals. Such infrastructure will be used to support OED in the technological and scientific transfer to professionals. The Programme Countries will transfer their know-how and expertise for the achievement of the eDrone objectives by training the future teachers of the OED and by supporting them in the first edition of the OED.
Project Coordinator: Universita Degli Studi Del Sannio (Italy)
The main goals of the project are:
- Enhancing student learning experience in Armenia, Georgia and Belarus by promoting development and innovation in teaching and learning (T&L), supporting integration of technology and research, as well as disseminating good practice.
- Modernising higher education in Armenia, Georgia and Belarus in line with the Bologna agenda and establishing cooperation in education and training between partner and EU countries by promoting virtual mobility of teachers and students, and enhancing lifelong learning capabilities.
Project objectives:
The abovementioned goals will be achieved through fulfilment of the following specific objectives:
- To strengthen Teaching Staff Development Centres (TSDC) in the PC universities by enhancing capacities of staff and trainers, modernizing infrastructure and introducing innovative teacher training and academic leadership programmes.
- To build up capacities of the partner universities’ teaching staff by developing their innovative and technology-enhanced teaching and learning (T&L) skills and abilities of competency- and research-based teaching.
- To establish a Virtual Academy of Teaching and Learning (VATL) as an international community of teachers, staff and students interested in using and sharing Open Educational Resources (OER) for the improvement of technology-enhanced T&L.
- To promote greater awareness on the types and methods of innovative and technology-enhanced T&L and to disseminate best practices within and between universities in the partner and EU countries.
Expected results
The following outcomes and outputs are expected by the end of the project:
- 30 staff and 100 trainers trained on innovative T&L methods and technology-enhanced instruction.
- 28 technology-enhanced teacher training classrooms, 9 multimedia OER content building studios and 5 new teacher training courses.
- Over 500 trained university teachers who are no more just “lecturers” but “designers of the learning methods and environments”.
- Virtual Academy of Teaching & Learning (VATL) - an interactive professional development, mutual learning and virtual mobility platform of teachers to promote innovative T&L practices.
- 6 virtual communities of teaching practice, an annual Virtual Forum and institutional award programmes promoting awareness on innovative pedagogy and excellence in T&L.
- Disseminated electronic newsletters, booklets, VATL Manual, Good Practice Teacher Handbook and training kits on innovative T&L.
Project Coordinator: Armen Budaghyan, printel@ysu.am
Raising Research Capacity of Georgian HEIs through Developing R&D Units / HERD
Project aims to respond to major objectives of Georgian R&D strategy defined by the government’s four-point development plan including education reform and creation of knowledge-based society; to strategic development plan of the Ministry of Education and Science [MES] on quality enhancement of education, research, raising innovation potential, capacity building on tech-transfer via strengthening university-industry relations, and internationalization; and to new standards of National Center for Education Quality Enhancement demanding the evidence-based policy for R&D and strategic development plans for research at HEIs.
Project Coordinator - Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU)
Paving the way to interregional mobility and ensuring relevance, quality and equity of access (PAWER)
Project wider objective is to foster interregional integration and cooperation developing reliable joint tools for the enhancement of international dimension of the HE systems and the compatibility between the 4 regions and of these with EHEA. Herewith, PAWER aims to support the modernization, accessibility and internationalization of 23 PC Universities from 8 countries belonging to 4 different regions.
Specific objectives of the project are: to share the knowledge of the credit system used in each PC, and to develop common understanding of Learning Outcome and Workload, to share information on if and how the ECTS are applied in the partner countries, to enhance the staff capacity in planning, delivering, and evaluating degree courses, through 1 week training of 111 staff in EU, to analyse the grade system in each country and institutions, and provide a concrete comparison in the selected degree courses, to establish follow up actions in cooperation with EU universities by signing bilateral agreements in view of “Credit Mobility” programme calls and inter-institutional cooperation, to establish and apply appropriate dissemination strategies and tools.
Project Coordinator: Universita Degli Studi Dell'aquila (Italy)
CURE- creates a multi-faceted program of innovative courses, ICT methods of teaching and learning, workshops and activities that promote civic education in teacher-training programs. CURE connects NGOs- student activities- and establishes civic clubs/centers at HEIs + schools, linking non-formal learning within formal ed. frameworks. A cadre of CURE faculty, students, teachers + ed. Leaders, who will become agents of change through the LLL skills for work in schools and communities. Specific objectives of the project are: Gathering good practices for promoting CE and of innovative teaching and learning methods, Construct and develop a dynamic program and strategies that promotes curricular reform for (CE) and in HEI in IL and GEO that can be used as a model anywhere in the world, QA on the academic development of the program including innovative teaching methods, piloting at least 4 courses in each HEI Partner and 1-2 courses in 3 EU HEIs, piloting 6 -8 student activities that promote CE on GE/IL HEI campuses, Faculty and teacher training of workshops.
Project Coordinator: Gordon Academic College of Education
The core objective of the project is to enhance the quality of teaching and learning processes that are based on the principles of academic integrity and supported by policies, mechanisms and tools that help prevent and detect cases of plagiarism in higher education institutions in Georgia.
Project Coordinator: Ilia State University
Assessment Tools for new learning environments in higher education institutions - ASSET
The project aims at revising and evaluating existing assessment methods, developing a system of teaching and evaluation that best suits students' learning needs. As a result of the project academic personnel will be trained by beneficiary Universities and introduction of new assessment tools for training programs.
Project Coordinator: Kinneret Academic College.
“MEDIATS: Training and Society Transformation”
Ilia State University is implementing ERASMUS + Project “MEDIATS: Training and Society Transformation”, Project includes the following countries: The Kingdom of the Netherlands, Spain, Latvia, Germany, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
The project provides the partner universities (Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine) with an opportunity to become the key players in the promotion of the mediation processes on the basis of the best practices of European universities.
Within the framework of the above project, the Ilia State University School of Law’s activity consists of two components:
Development of a mediation module and a certification program at the Master's level;
Establishment of a Federation of Mediation. It should be noted that Ilia State University School of Law is the leader in this component and coordinates the formation of similar federations in partner countries
The project envisages conducting trainings for academic personnel of partner universities in order to improve their qualifications, creation of the mediators’ certification and training system, student internships in European countries etc.
Project Coordinator: The Netherlands Business Academy (the Kingdom of the Netherlands).
Modernization of environment protection studies programmes for Armenia and Georgia (MENVIPRO)
The system of postgraduate studies is an important element of HE system of any country as it lays a foundation to innovative economy and competitive science system. Moreover, it also ensures the reproduction of the HE system itself. Extending the Bologna principles to this area of education corresponds fully to the trends and needs of European and global economies and lays in the area of priorities for education reforms in Armenia and Georgia. So far, the attention paid to this sector, especially in the field of Environmental Protection (EP), was not sufficient. For instance, in Armenia, the country running a nuclear power station, the postgraduate curriculum in the field of Environmental radiation protection is not available! All specialists in this field have to study abroad. In Georgia, the country the economy of which fully depends on tourism and agriculture (e.g. wine production), there are no postgraduate courses in the field of Food safety. At the same time, the thematic area of EP represents a lasting and important priority both in Europe and in the target countries. In fact, capacities in EP are a core prerequisite for ensuring quality of life and competitiveness of economy, especially for such small countries as Armenia and Georgia, the countries with very clear Smart Specialization Strategies. That is why; the ERASMUS+ programme continuously announces this field as a priority area for cooperation with the target countries.
The overall objective of the project is to significantly improve the quality of postgraduate studies in the field of Environment Protection in Armenia and Georgia on the basis of complex modernization of postgraduate studies in line with the Bologna principles, Salzburg principles of EAU and best European practice.
Project Coordinator: Tuscia University – Italy