Cultural heritage is recognized as a driver and enabler for sustainable development. Its reuse / adaptive reuse and valorisation plays a crucial role in attracting tourism, increasing employability, advancing the region’s economic potentials, producing urban and regional development, while prolonging the heritage lifespan. However, many heritage sites are not recognized by their governments and lack the tourism awareness and publicity. The unclear strategy for developing and marketing these sites, induce the loss of their unique values. Additionally, the inappropriateness of the facilities and/or services in such sites, produce a repellent effect for visitors. The South-Mediterranean region (3) is characterized by numerous overlooked heritage sites that are poorly publicized for the tourism industry. This drawback reflects in the academic sector that needs to acquire the suitable skills for innovative Management of Cultural Heritage via Tourism Development. The academia requires the inauguration of a blended education that delivers an intermediate shade between Heritage, Planning, Tourism, and Economics. The project aims to delineates the drivers connected to the potentials of cultural heritage in the context of developing a touristic destination, encouraging a socio-economic recovery. From another angle, it also investigates the role of touristic sites in promoting the preservation and revival of heritage assets. The project will implement Intensive Study Programs (ISP) in six universities, promoting peer-learning approaches while allowing the urban development of the case studies in Italy, Spain, Egypt and Tunisia. It will provide a Strategic Partnership between HEIs, in order to address the issues found in Heritage Management education associated with tourism promotion, addressing the insufficient exploitation of heritage assets (tangible & intangible). The project will approach the field of heritage management by tackling 6 main threads: Urban Planning, Socio-Economic Planning, Architecture Directives, Creative Usage, Environmental Efficiency, and Circular Economy. The project has a cross-sectorial approach, as it will involve several sectors during the ISPs, including the academia, business, tourism, heritage authorities, local government, and local citizens. The project will deliver 6 main Intellectual Outputs that will be accessible to students, teachers and professional bodies, active in the field of Cultural Heritage and Tourism. 1) The Intensive Study Programs will provide theoretical and practical development of Cultural Heritage case studies. Developed on different phases, each ISP will be available for students from the four beneficiary universities. ISPs will increase students’ exposure, contributing to internationalization and mobility activities. 2) Case study-based ISPs will provide proposals to develop and actual overlooked local heritage sites with the contribution of experts in the field of Heritage Management and local authorities. 3) The output of each case study-based ISP will be published as “Tourism-led Heritage Development” guiding manuals for each of the selected case study. 4) Detailed factsheets will be developed and publicized about the designated case study heritage site of each University. 5) TOURITAGE micro-lab will be initiated to assist researcher in the survey and mapping of the designated case study, while being an important asset for future researchers. 6) A final international exhibition & forum will take place at the end of the project, to present the findings of the project to the wider public. It will exhibit students’ work across the 6 different heritage sites. The event will encompass the launching the developed guiding manuals for “Tourism-led Heritage Development” for the different investigated case studies, where ideas, views and methods can be exchanged for future development and progress and expansion with other universities, businesses and local authorities. The f

The promotion of Biotechnology adapted to the needs and priority problems of Tunisia will help reduce its dependence on the outside world and promote its autonomy. The emergence of new technologies in the Biotechnology has encouraged the renewal of industrial strategies and the growth of innovative companies creating new jobs. The present project aims at modernizing higher education, strengthening the LMD reform and consolidating the quality of education in Tunisian biotechnology institutes in order to improve the qualifications and qualification of graduates in order to guarantee a better insertion rate in the labor market in various sectors: pharmaceutical, cosmetic, food and environmental industries. It aims particularly to make the training courses in the biotechnology paths more professional to match the needs of the world of work and thus optimize the employability, the speed of integration and the entrepreneurship spirit of graduates. This project proposal aligns with higher education reforms in the partner country (Tunisia) which promote university-business cooperation and encourage new learning methods based primarily on entrepreneurship. The project will be enriched by the contributions of the European universities members of the project through the transfer of expertise and good practices for quality training compatible with European standards and meeting the socio-economic needs of Tunisia.

By bringing together all the 13 Tunisian public universities, the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education (MESRS) and two other very important players such as the ANPR and the IEAQA, the DIRASA Project has the objective to contribute to the improvement of the university research governance in Tunisia by promoting dialogue and scientific cooperation between the actors of the Tunisian national research system. In particular, DIRASA aims to strengthen the capacities of strategic monitoring and scientific foresight process through the improvement of the skills of university staff, by enhancing the visibility of university research and by developing interactions between research and the socio-economic environment.Because of these objectives, DIRASA highlight the new technologies in higher education that are needed for the development of the higher education sector and for its links with society through the creation of a Network at a national level where universities, research units and laboratories, research centres work together to apply the research products into the local context.Three are the main target groups of the project’s actions: the leaders (rectors, vice-rectors, heads of institutions and departments, deans and vice-deans in charge of university research) of Tunisian universities; administrative and academic staff as well as those in charge of research management and administration, who are responsible for the operational management of research; and finally, researchers and doctoral students, who will benefit from the training provided by the project. In addition to these target groups, there are also representatives of general society (policy makers, other national and local institutions that are not consortium partners) who will actively participate in the cooperation workshop still planned by the project.

EQuAM-T project aims to strengthen the management of quality assurance in higher education in Tunisia. It will capitalize on existing capacities at the national and local levels to transform dispersed components and capacities into a system with interactions and capacities allowing to evolve from few dispersed initiatives, taken on a small scale and weakly institutionalized, towards recurrent actions, regular and coordinated on a large scale, with caparable level of quality and benefiting from strong systemic capacities and performances at the national level.Tunisia will have an agency capable of carrying out recurrent and regular assessments in all universities and higher education institutions and capable of carrying out continuous work, both at institutional and programmatic level. EQuAM-T will accelerate operationalization and strengthen the QA system in place. On the other hand, the toolbox, guidelines, benchmarks and code of practice that will be developed during EQuAM-T project will continue to serve as the basis for a rapidly evolving Tunisian QA system, adaptable to the different contexts of each university. EQuAM-T will make concrete the full integration of external QA and internal QA processes and a clear definition of the role and responsibilities of the actors. Thanks to the EQuAM-T project, internal committees for quality in universities will be operationalized and upgraded to European standards. Certifyng online training for initiation or development of QA actors will be possible in three languages. The accreditation of QA experts in Tunisie, but also at the MENA region, will also be possible within the framework of courses certified by the EQuAM-T consortium and in particular quality agencies including the Tunisian agency IEAQA and the Spanish agency ANECA.

Le projet TUNED a fourni une opportunité aux institutions partenaires de se fédérer autour d'une action structurante pour répondre aux priorités définies par le plan stratégique de la réforme de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche scientifique 2015-2019 en Tunisie: « Améliorer la qualité de la formation universitaire et l’employabilité des diplômés ». Le transfert de compétences et capacités réalisé en faveur des universités bénéficiaires a été articulé autour de 4 piliers fondamentaux: -Création de la plateforme web de rencontre entre offre et demande sur le marché de l’emploi des diplômés, www.tuned.rnu.tn, où les étudiants en fin d'études peuvent évaluer leur expérience universitaire en répondant à un questionnaire en ligne, créer et mettre à jour continuellement leur CV sous format Europass en arabe, français et anglais dont la partie administrative est certifiée par les universités d'appartenance, consulter l'offre de formation universitaire, visualiser et comparer les données relatives aux enquêtes sur le profil et l'insertion professionnelle des diplômés; la plateforme a mis en relation 26.876 diplômés enregistrés avec 118 entreprises, ce qui a donné lieu à 94.696 CV téléchargés, 18 offres d’emploi publiées, 142 candidatures envoyées.- Réalisation de 3 enquêtes statistiques sur le profil des diplômés en 2017, 2018 et 2019, pour évaluer l'efficacité interne des universités, en impliquant au total 9.146 étudiants en fin d'études. - Réalisation d'une enquête statistique sur l'insertion professionnelle des diplômés de licence et d'écoles d'ingénieurs 2016 à 3 ans depuis l'obtention du diplôme, qui a approfondi la transition de l’université vers le marché de l’emploi et les perspectives d’insertion professionnelle des diplômés, et a évalué l'efficacité externe des universités, en interviewant un échantillon représentatif de 5.079 diplômés.- Formation de 15 agents de liaison avec le tissu socioéconomique en vue du développement de la carrière des diplômés et de l’amélioration de leurs habilités transversales, ainsi que du renforcement de la collaboration universités-entreprises; rédaction d'un manuel du formateur et réalisation de 16 formations locales en faveur des Centres 4C des universités. Un 5ème pilier transversal et indispensable pour garantir l’efficacité des 4 piliers ci-dessous a concerné la dissémination des bénéfices attendus auprès d’étudiants, diplômés, personnel administratif et entreprises, par le biais de news publiées sur le site web du projet, www.tuned-project.eu, de 5 conférences nationales et de 55 séminaires locaux, ainsi que de la réalisation d'une vidéo promotionnelle, https://youtu.be/erBXuy00S20.Le projet a voulu impulser un changement de mentalité tourné vers l’évaluation systématique de l’efficacité interne et externe des universités, pour un suivi régulier des performances de diplômés et institutions, afin d’institutionnaliser l’assurance qualité, garantir une amélioration constante de l’offre de formation basée sur des observations ponctuelles et des analyses rigoureuses, et favoriser l'employabilité des diplômés par un rapprochement vers les entreprises aussi en termes d'outils innovants de recrutement. TUNED concerne désormais l'ensemble des universités du pays, le Ministère de tutelle ainsi que les 24 ISET, et CONECT, qui ont décidé d'investir dans la pérennité des acquis du projet et de créer le ROUT, Réseaux des Observatoires Universitaires Tunisiens, pour institutionnaliser leur engagement commun et donner vie à une structure permanente de soutien à la réforme de l'enseignement supérieur en Tunisie.