The partner countries involved in this proposal, namely Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq (but also some of the Programme Countries involved, such as Turkey and Germany) are experiencing a very critical situation due to the high number of refugees present on their territory: most of these are Syrian citizens, and include a high percentage of former University students who had to interrupt their academic curriculum.The main specific objective of RESCUE is to help the Partner Country Universities in structuring an effective response to this problem, by creating ad hoc units (the Refugee Student Operational Support Unit – R-SOS), whose mission is to structure specific services supporting the refugee students in resuming their academic training path. The analysis carried out by the target Universities has shown that each one of them has different approaches and constraints vis-à-vis this problem, therefore ad hoc solutions must be implemented in each one of them.Hence each EU university with an experience in dealing with this issue has cooperated with the Universities of one specific MENA Country: TU Berlin supported the Lebanese Universities, Aydin University supported the Jordanian Universities whereas Barcelona University supported the Iraqi Universities.One major change in the partnership composition was made in order to increase the project impact in terms of refugees to be reached: in January 2019 the Lebanese International University was added as a partner and had to make a big effort to catch up with the other partners. Once the R-SOS units have become operational during the first half of 2019, the services they deliver help the refugee students in resuming their academic training path, in some cases by accessing the standard curricula on the same basis as all the other students, in some other cases by following ad hoc training courses providing them with basic skills and competencies useful for employment purposes.Therefore the setting up of the R-SOS units is helping in improving the situation of the refugee students either by supporting them in getting a job in the hosting countries either in preparing them for returning to their origin country once the crisis is over.

D.Rad grounds radicalisation in perceptions of injustice which lead to grievance, alienation and polarisation. Based on a rigorous, cross-national survey of the drivers (injustice, grievance, alienation, polarisation) that can generate violent extremism, it uses innovative machine learning, discourse analysis and social psychology approaches to test projects, tools and dissemination strategies, emphasising the experiences of young people and socially excluded communities, and offering policy and practical recommendations. It will meet challenges posed for radicalisation research by developing online and offline interventions to promote agency, resolution and resilience. D.Rad will benefit from an exceptional breadth of backgrounds. The project spans national contexts including the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Finland, Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Georgia, Austria, and several minority nationalisms. It bridges academic disciplines ranging from political science and cultural studies to social psychology and artificial intelligence. This will involve three core objectives, supplemented by secondary aims: 1. Detect Trends: D.Rad aims to identify the actors, networks, and wider social contexts driving radicalisation, especially in the emerging context of everyday polarisation over mundane issue in micro-spatial environments, in order to base interventions in evidence grounded in contemporary data and methodologies. 2. Resolve Drivers: D.Rad aims to understand the online and offline drivers that turn grievance, alienation and polarisation into radicalisation, so that policies can more effectively target underlying problems of social exclusion. 3. Re-integration and Inclusion: D.Rad aims to understand how individuals affected by grievance, alienation and polarisation can be re-integrated into the established polity or social groups, without compromising personal or collective liberties.

The wider objective of the project is to support the structural reform of the higher education system in Jordan, develop a qualifications framework for higher education in line with national priorities, and implement at different institutional levels. NQF-J shall provide a QF for higher education for implementation at institutional level and, importantly, set up the basis for a comprehensive NQF, and thus endeavours to establish an NQF model that identifies the generic expectations of all levels of higher educational programmes. These will be expressed as learning outcomes, mainly based on knowledge, skills and competences. The standards of qualifications at each level will be created and established through a number of activities in which descriptors will be determined, along with appropriate QA processes, by all stakeholders in higher education. The methodology for setting and assuring the qualification standards will be disseminated among academic institutions, government agencies responsible for QA and accreditation, and a wide spectrum of stakeholders. The project will clearly demonstrate the standards of Jordanian higher education awards and their national comparability. Additionally, through rigorous comparison with other national QFs, the project will demonstrate comparability of Jordanian higher education wider awards with international norms and expectations, thus supporting mobility and employability. In particular, its compatibility against the Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area (FQ-EHEA) and also against the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) will be demonstrated.

Jordan faces many challenges in its development toward a socio-economically and environmentally sustainable society. Lack of energy and land/water resources, insufficent infrastructure, serious traffic problems in urban areas and tremendous burden imposed by thousands of Syrian refugees are just some examples of existing problems. Addressing these problems need technical support from a well functioning mapping infrastructure and geodesy education.Present geodesy education in Jordan does not meet the needs of the society. There exists a geodesy bachelor program. But there is no master program in this field. Geodesy institutions do not have modern equipment to teach students new technologies. Curricula and teaching methods are not adapted to the new labour market and society's needs.This Erasmus+ project aims to address the above issues in order to modernise geodesy education in Jordan. The project consortium consists of 3 EU universities, 3 Jordanian universities and 3 stakeholder organizations from both public and private sectors.The expected output are:(1) strengthened cooperation between geodesy education institutions and Jordanian labour market partners(2) 3 new geodesy laboratories with state-of-the-art geodetic equipment to be established during 2018(3) new geodesy/geoinformatics master curricula with detailed syllabus to be developed before summer of 2018(4) new master programs in geodesy/geoinformatics due to start in autumn 2019 at 3 Jordanian universities(5) Jordanian geodesy staff have upgraded their competences through 4 intensive training courses during 2018-2019(6) web-based e-learning platforms are set-up in 2019(7) new Problem-Based Learning (PBL) pedagogy are introduced in 2020 to foster active learning(8) quality assurance mechanism is implemented in spring 2020(9) 12 new teaching materials are developed before summer 2020(10) retraining in new geodesy technologies is offered to working professionals in geodesy and geoinformatics.

Medical Schools in the Middle East are currently suffering from a critical shortage of scientists and academicians holding higher degrees in the various disciplines of basic medical sciences (BMS). For most of these Schools, the requirements for a Bachelor degree in Medicine include the successful completion of three years of intense coursework in BMS, prior to passing through three additional years of patient-oriented, bedside clinical coursework. Thus, iBMS-JO project responds to the needs to graduate students with deep background in BMS. This can be achieved by the establishment the first innovative intercalated BSc (iBSc) programs in BMS. Moreover, Telemedicine Labs (TL) will also be established to support the research activities of students and faculty, as well as providing services to the health care facilities. The establishment of an intercalated BSc (iBSc) programs in BMS is an opportunity for students to learn more about a particular topic, to develop transferable skills and/or participate in a more in-depth research project than previously available as part of a medical degree. This is can be offered after the 3rd or 4th year, which could also include an intercalated year into their standard medical programs, making them a 7-year degree, where an intercalation typically lasts one year. The expected outputs of this program include: n. 6 accredited iBSc programs in BMS, capacity building for the staff (at least 48): a) to design curricula in line with the Bologna process, b) to design and develop inter/multidisciplinary course curricula in clinical nutrition (at least 7 new modules, 120 students/year); and c) to apply innovative and flexible teaching and learning methods. Moreover, TL will provide research facilities for students and staff (n. >40 research project/year), which will support the iBSc programs and function as life-long learning resources and Centres of Excellence in medical education and research.