The B-learning Uzbekistan Veterinary Network / BUzNet project will be implemented by a consortium of 4 European HEIs and 4 Uzbek HEIs. The general objective of the project is to increase the life standards of common Uzbek people through better veterinary and zootechnical teaching, which will ultimately result in better technical support for local herds’ owners and safer animal products reaching the general society. And this will be accomplished taking into account the local ecological limitations and using advance teaching techniques of practical subjects in veterinary/animal sciences. To do this we must first be sure about what we are dealing with, and so, a series of inquiries and local visits of European experts will be done in order to have a clear idea of the exact Uzbek situation in veterinary farm animal clinic and surgery and milk quality control. Then, a group of Uzbek teachers will be trained in European HEIs in new ways of teaching practical subjects and using B learning strategies to help doing so. Meanwhile, an updating of the present Uzbek curricula and local facilities present in Uzbek HEIs will be done. This way it will be possible to fully implement the new teaching strategies by the third and last year of the project. The core of the project will be the use of a B-learning interface (BLUzVet) that will create a learning community consisting of all members of the project consortium, teachers, students and veterinarians. The information is created by the students during practical classes under teachers supervision, commented by all consortium members and will be used in students’ examinations. In the future this system will be extended to members from other countries and regions. The network formed within this project agglutinates Veterinary HEIs from different backgrounds and will improve the setting of new veterinary, animal production management and milk quality control teaching standards in Uzbekistan and beyond.

Armenia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have shared a common historical background. Since their independence in the 90s, agriculture has undergone a period of transformation. The social, economic and political changes have had an impact on the entire higher education system.TOPAS aims at filling the gap within a common former soviet inherited agricultural sciences higher education system in these countries and practical training in real working environment to provide a better match between job market needs and the qualifications offered. The vocationally oriented practical programs should be introduced and improved based on learning outcomes and competencies approach with flexible learning pathways and permeability among the different agrarian management programs. Within the program partnership between universities and stakeholders (farm industry and associations) will be fostered.A wide-range of activities will facilitate the transition from teacher centered knowledge-based form of education to student-centered practice based education in Agrarian studies and hence employability by enhancing the cooperation between universities and agriculture enterprises through adequate internship schemes with government support to recognize formal and informal learning and endorse ECQIP.Another innovative aspect of the project is the creation of a databank for applied sciences on the field of agriculture management for teaching purposes in the field of data collection of students, teachers and researchers. This databank will consist of data on production inputs, costs and outputs of major cash crops of these countries and will offer valid data for agricultural management study courses.The experience of the last decade showed, that missing practical orientation and knowledge of BA and MA students is one of the most important obstacles for professional qualification. While curricula development was well adapted in many fields, the cooperation with farms and industry has to be built up

Quality of higher education (HE) is the basic priority of HE development during last decades in many countries of the world. In Europe, the Bologna process (BP) has declared the quality of HE as one of the major priorities. In CA region the quality assurance (QA) systems and mechanisms are the national priorities while the BP type reforms constitute one of the regional priorities. The consortium 5 institutions of Programme countries (PrCs-CZ, ES LV,SK,) and 6 HEIs from Partner countries (PaCs - KZ and UZ) was established with the aim to enhance the capacities in implementation of internal QA systems in PaCs using the European standards and guidelines (ESG). The specific objectives will be - Mapping the situation in the field of QA in PaCs and their HEIs; - Identification of the principles of BP relevant for HEIs in PaCs, interactive training with sharing experience among HEIs of Pr and Pa Cs; setting the institutional profiles of HEIs of PaCs with exploitation of U-map methodology;- Development of internal new/innovative, modified QA systems of HEIs of PaCs. The process will be composed of the first draft of QA systems, piloting with the supports of site-visit of expert teams of PrCs and consultations leading to the final versions of internal QA systems considering national rules/institutional regulations, Institutional missions (profiles) and exploiting ESG. The main results will be 6 internal QA systems, 6 self-evaluation reports and Final Synthesis Report (complemented with descriptive studies, training/teaching materials, analytical case, national and comparative studies) freely available to all interested stakeholders also after the end of the project lifetime (approving the sustainability of the project results). Dissemination of project results will run through the project website, facebook, leaflets announcing the project events, Final Synthesis Report and two dissemination conferences.

"In the last years, with the contribution of European Cooperation Programmes, the EHEA became a reference point for policy dialogue between the EU and several regions of the world on higher education and its key role for employability of graduates. The growing global dimension of education, needs further actions for the enhancement of exchanges between the EHEA and other parts of the world, sharing goals and principles, as the transparent recognition of studies and qualifications. Within the EHEA, the implementation of ECTS (as credit accumulation and transfer), the fundamental shift from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred approach (SCL) and the use of learning outcomes and workload in curriculum design and delivery, as result of a long process and experimentation, increased the transparency and readability of the educational process and facilitated the recognition of mobility from institution to institution and from country to country as well as successful learning mobility between institutions of EHEA for short-term study periods (""credit mobility""). The recent acceleration of mobility between EHEA and other regions through the EM programme put a renewed and global perspective of “mobility” which showed the huge challenges that HE institutions and systems still need to face and manage. The students participating to EM projects are experimenting the same problems in recognition of studies abroad, that EU students and institutions had to afford at the first stage of Erasmus mobility.The project proposal intends to harmonise the credit allocation and grading system in 5 study areas jointly developed in previous projects in 23 institutions from 8 countries belonging to 4 different regions, besides EU, providing a reliable scheme for credit and grades transfer, and is based on previous experiences of the partnership in TEMPUS Programme in CA, Caucasus, Russia and Asia and EMA2 projects in the same regions, and on the new ECTS Guide and pilot project EGRACONS"

The motivation behind the Project is to bring together European HEIs which possess and supply cutting-edge developments, innovative learning practices and extensive international experience and HEIs from Partner countries in Central Asia/CA/ which need and demand the same developments, practices and experience. The specific problems of Region 7 would be solved by assuring Accessibility and Harmonization of HE in CA through curriculum modernization and development. ACADEMICA Project intends to promote the voluntary convergence with the EU expertise in Engineering Studies. The innovative character is expressed by:1. Innovative methodology: ACADEMICA training path integrates methodology and content that would equip lecturers with transversal and key competences and skills necessary for their active inclusion in the global digital teaching and learning space.2. ICT-based educational opportunities: Provision of a more flexible accessibility to training opportunities thanks to ICT-based approaches;3. Modernised University curricula in Engineering Sciences where the contemporary technology-based approaches and contents are integrated.4. Establishment of a transnational co-operation system among Universities and business organizations in order to improve the capacity of HEIs in Region 7 thus achieving excellence by linking education, innovation and business.The Project is expected to create short- and long-term benefits for HE, business and society generating European Added Value through:- the acknowledgment of European educational standards beyond the EU borders;- fostering the link: education-business-society;- enhancement of the inter-cultural dialog among the participating countries;- inspiring the supply of open accessible and free of cost educational resources. - provision of a common framework stimulating the exchange and synthesis of experiences and best practices gained through collaboration of experts from different sectors of EU and CA.