Belarus is in the process of building nuclear power generation with two reactors envisaged: construction of the first will be completed this year, construction of the second will finish in 2020. Higher Education in nuclear safety and radiation protection will be of utmost importance, hence appropriate curricula need to be developed and set in place. Aim of this project is the development of curricula at the Master level, in line with Bologna principles, to be accredited by the Ministry of education and adopted throughout the Country. To this aim, a number of Belarusian University, covering practically all the regions of the Country, have been involved in the project, and will serve both as developers and as “testing facilities” for the new curricula. The EU Universities involved all have a long-lasting and deep experience in the field, and have developed in the past their own curricula in the field. The expected results will be innovative two-year study program, including a special attention to practical training effected with a two prong approach: new, up to date didactic laboratories to be set up in all the Belarusian partner HEIs; traineeships in institutions and companies active in the field of nuclear safety and radiation protection. Special attention shall be focused on “training the trainers”, i.e., professional instruction and internship for the teachers-to-be. Ideally, a first generation of teachers will be formed during the three years of the project, and this first group of fully trained teachers will continue the work raising the new generations of instructors. The end result will be a Country-wide education framework in the field of nuclear safety and radiation protection. The impact on the Country is quite clear: the capability of handling the new nuclear industry safely and effective; the wider impact for Europe will be that a newcomer in the nuclear industry can be trusted to be capable to manage its nuclear potential.

The project is aimed to enhance quality of HE with employment focus in content by enhancing internal QA for teaching/learning & improving teaching staff performance at BY Universities for them to respond to the increased demands of society/economy. It has objectives to enhance QA policy-making & procedures for work with teaching staff to ensure quality in HE through the establishment of Centres for Academic Development & Teacher Training (CADTT) at each BY partner; optimise pedagogical performance of teaching staff via the development of an in-service university teacher training programme for university staff who need pedagogical training; increase quality of students’ performance at University & at work places through application of innovative education methods to ensure transition to student-centred practice-based & market-oriented education; apply QA system at BY Universities for identifying staff in need of pedagogical training; & introduce new regulations on teaching staff employment at BY Universities. Managerial, academic staff & students are the target groups in the project. Labour market, the other Universities in the country are the major stakeholders.The major outcomes & outputs achieved in the project – CADTTs, internal system of QA, innovative methods of education, In-service University Teacher Training Programme, & regulation for staff employment, will be the tools for producing impact on the target groups & stakeholders. An important aspect of the project is the development of pedagogical interaction & networks for staff in the EU, TK & BY. The main impact will be on the university management system in what concerns QA for teaching/learning & teaching staff performance-staff & students will be the target group. Innovative education methods will expand the impact. The society's stakeholders-other BY universities & labour market will be final beneficiaries of the wider impact – graduates’ enhanced skills for better employment & performance at work.

Context/background: The lack of proficiency in academic language for the study of the specialist sector often constitutes an obstacle to student mobility and may limit the acquisition of theoretical, technical and professional knowledge during the period of the Erasmus stay in the host institution. This is especially true in the field of Architecture and Construction (AC), where training covers a number of technical sub-fields which are often defined by professional practices, cultural traditions and legal frameworks which are specific to a given country. In such a scenario, while English is still widely used as a lingua franca, proficiency in the national language becomes crucial for removing linguistic and cultural barriers that can hinder the training/learning process and/or discourage student mobility across Europe.Objectives: The project aims at creating academic-professional language modules for French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish as a foreign language in the field of AC with a view to encourage student mobility and to improve the outcomes of mobility programs.Participants: The project sees participation of members of five Higher Education institutions with extensive teaching and research experience in the fields of Applied Linguistics, Teaching Foreign Languages, Corpus Linguistics and Language Learning/Teaching Technology: University “G.d’Annunzio” (UdA), Chieti-Pescara (Italy); Masaryk University (MU), Brno (Czech Republic); Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), Madrid (Spain); University of Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM), Bordeaux (France); Polotsk State University (PSU), Polotsk (Belarus). One private enterprise, Internet Web Solutions (IWS), based in Málaga (Spain), is the IT partner of the project, already active in several Strategic Partnerships projects for the development of open-access resources.Activities: The project will develop in two main stages. In the first stage (Intellectual Output 1), consultation with (academic and professional) stakeholders will allow mapping of AC sub-fields and communicative settings which currently constitute an impediment to student and professional mobility. The results of this consultation will inform the creation of language corpora (i.e., digital collections of texts) comprising FRENCH, GERMAN, ITALIAN, RUSSIAN and SPANISH texts representative of professional and academic communication in AC. In the second stage (Intellectual Output 3), each partner university will develop innovative language teaching modules for AC in French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish, which will be made freely available online for testing and subsequent use by mobility students at partner Universities. Throughout the project, IT partner IWS will develop, test and update the Open Educational Resources (OER) platform which will beused to distribute resources created within SEAH (Intellectual Output 2).Methodology: The project relies on the use of a variety of methods at each stage, including: semi-automatic creation and annotation of language corpora; automatic extraction of linguistic (lexical, morphological, syntactic and pragmatic) features to inform the learning materials; OER-Platform implementation and testing; survey-based methods for data collection and analysis.Results, impact and long term benefits: The innovative language learning materials created within the project will:- closely address the learning needs of trainees in the field as reported by involved stakeholders;- standardize training practices in this field across the five languages covered in the project, while still attending to culture-specific aspects;- promote students' motivation, autonomy and active engagement in the learning process through the use of a variety of media and IT tools as well as access to the electronic corpora;- guarantee free access to high-quality, research-informed training to the public.The methods, criteria and tools used for creating language learning materials will contribute to more effective and motivating training for mobility students, making them more confident in undertaking international efforts (in their training years and, subsequently, in their professional career). In the longer term, this will result in greater participation in (and more positive outcomes for) mobility programs, creating better career opportunities for young EU citizens. Free access to the Open Educational Resource (OER)-platform will also provide lifelong learning opportunities for professionals looking to collaborate with companies and individuals abroad, thus promoting use of the resources by larger pools of users beyond academia.Finally, the availability of multilingual language learning material can greatly contribute to enhancing visibility and more wide-spread knowledge of French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish architectural heritage and the professional practices associated with it, promoting national cultural valorization in international settings.

"MODEST project aims at modernization of doctoral education in Science in Partner Countries. Wider project objective is ""To enhance cooperation capacities of Higher educational institutions of Partner Countries in the field of Doctoral Studies within European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and European Research Area (ERA)"" and specific objectives are:- Improve quality and employability of doctoral graduates of PC HEI's by modernizing doctoral education towards interdisiplinarity, internationalisation, enhancing mobility, using new teaching methodologies in line with Salzburg Principles, BFGU recommendations- Facilitate successful adherence with Bologna reforms and its instruments by organization of special training sessions for academic and administrative staff of HEI's in PCs- Improve up-skills of research and educational staff by retraining them on new teaching methods and create modern learning and research environment based on student centred approach, competence based program development- Improve structure and internal capacities of services of doctoral education and reseach by setting up Doctoral Training Centers in PC HEI’s; ensure their sustainability and cooperation with EU partners by establishing a professional network using modern ICT tools. To meet these objectives, the project will make use of the analysis of best EU practices and of the needs of PC to develop training materials and organize intensive retraining of HEI’s staff. Structure and content of DTCs will be worked out, including set of regulatory documents, instructions for DTC creation, programs and materials for DTCs and interdisciplinary Summer schools for doctoral students. To ensure sustainability, a web-platform and Virtual Network environment will be developed using participatory approaches and ICT methodologies. Synergy with other European initiatives will be sought via participation of consortium members in EU networks and organizations (Coimbra Group, EURASHE, etc)."

The ICT sector is one of the leading ones in the economy of Belarus. This has created a gap between the challenges of the global market & skills/competences ICT graduates have at entering the profession. The companies state the high level of professional knowledge of university graduates but low level of soft/transferable skills necessary to work in international teams. The aim of the project is to enhance employability of ICT master students & foster entrepreneurship & establishment of SMEs in ICT by modernising the existing master curriculum in ICT. The modernised MSc programme in ICT will be more labour-market & society oriented, practice-based, & student-centred training students in professional subjects leading to knowledge, hard skills & competencies in the profession with soft/transferable skills presupposing its interdisciplinarity. The project meets the agenda of the Yerevan Ministerial Communiqué of “ensuring educational opportunities to provide the competences and skills required for innovation & employment”. By enhancing quality & relevance of learning & teaching to the labour market & society demands the project will promote pedagogical innovation in student-centred learning environments & stronger link between teaching, learning & research central to the EHEA policies.The project will achieve 7 milestones: (1) upgraded professional & new soft skills courses, (2) study materials, (3) QA guidelines/procedures for the modernised MSc, (5) 3 intakes of students, (6) 8 international student projects, (7) measurements of pedagogical approaches & methods appliedThe project will produce impact at university level (beneficiaries are master students & teachers on modernised MSc programme), at society level (any person fitting master level study as a potential student of the modernised MSc, potential employers & wider society who will be users of services of successful SMEs established by the MSc graduates in future), at European & global level (ICT companies).