Soil and land degradation refers to all process(es) by which soil declines in quality and is thus made less fit for a specific purpose, such the crop production. Education will play a crucial role in the land degradation protection. This involves an opportunity and implies rethinking and reorganizing higher education institutions (HEIs) to become effective change agents in terms of learning outcomes for students. Coherently with the regional and international effort at political level, IUCLAND proposes to improve the effectiveness of development and land protection strategies by increasing cooperation capacity and best practices productivity, though educational patterns involving HEIs and all potential stakeholders, e.g. farmers’ association. The main objective is to create an international network in Land Degradation topics among universities and other organizations of the society at large aimed at:- establishing structured cooperation for scientific research and knowledge transfer;- starting summer school and workshop that will train the actual and future generation of academics able to do research and produce innovation in the framework of land degradation. - exchanging experiences and good practices related to educational programs.These objectives will be realized also through short-term mobility of teachers, administrative and technician, students for putting in common educational programs, quality assurance procedures, teaching materials, and to improve them with input from society in terms of required skills and jobs in environmental topics. All the branches of Environmental and Agriculture Science, and Remote Sensing are involved. As a result, the promotion of homogenization dynamics affecting educational patterns will improve international cooperation ability and effectiveness supporting the efforts played at national and regional levels.

The project consortium is composed of 3 universities, the National Mapping Agency and the Ministry of Education and Science of Kyrgyzstan, 3 universities, the Cadastre State Committee and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Armenia, and 4 European universities with departments specialized in complementary fields of GIT.The specific objectives of the project are:• To identify research and development needs of Kyrgyzstan and Armenia in the field of Geoinformation Technologies.• To create a Research Node in GIT per partner country to promote and harmonise collaborative innovation projects and joint research lines.• To improve and/or update research laboratories of GIT.• To train trainers from partner countries in relevant topics of GIT that have special interest for regional development of innovation and environmental protection.• To provide teachers and managers from HEI’s in partner countries knowledge and skills in transversal topics of higher education, such as quality assurance practices, innovation and entrepreneurship, curricula development by competences and learning outcomes, and others following Bologna process standards.• To create interdisciplinary postgraduate programmes (at master and PhD levels) that enhance the potential of GIT in different areas and degrees and focus research outputs on contemporary problems at regional and global scales.• To foster and strength the cooperation between university and industry in those topics identified as critical for the sustainable development of the partner countries.• To exchange and share experiences and perspectives between two countries, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, with lacks and potential in technical research development and similar recent historical background, that are facing socio-economic challenges and need to stimulate new strategies in research and development.

Central Asian universities could become those sites where the interest of different stakeholders – potential employers, government and youth could meet each other. An innovation and research is what modern society asks for. Creation of the Youth Centre will allow young people who usually don’t have appropriate knowledge, experience and funds to start their own business or develop any project to do it within these centers – develop a business model and start a micro or small business or non-commercial company. This is should not be just/or only a business idea - focus could be made either on social development, urban communities or environment. Within the project students will receive instruction on the fundamentals of leadership and business, normative and legislative support, while also investigating and articulating their own priorities and values. Over the courses, classes, speaker programs, and other experiences help build advanced leadership skills and develop awareness of how business works. Development program will become three-year program that will push students to set and achieve ambitious goals for their own advancement as leaders.Develop an online platform where students could upload their works and proposals for potential investors or any other interested parties. Those projects that are highly demanding or could bring much advantage in social context could be supported/financed and developed by university, government or private business companies.The program is expected to: develop students’ leadership skills; create the system of consultancy for newly developed and up-running enterprises; support start ups of universities’ students; create and develop University Innovation Consulting.Units responsible that will provide students with all necessary knowledge, consultant service, courses, equipment, market research, legal and managerial advice during several stages of the process of their project. Those are: development, approbation and start.