The wider objective of the project is to lay the foundation to instill peace oriented mind-set in Georgian society through education. The proposal aims to develop graduate curricula in Peace Studies at 4 HEIs in Georgia. Specific objectives are the following: (1) to provide targeted Georgian faculties with capacity development measures to enable them to meet European standards aligned with Bologna process; (2) to implement Peace Studies modules integrated in relevant academic programs at Georgian partner universities; (3) to equip Georgian universities with modern learning resources; (4) to provide wide opportunities for Georgian students by offering them internship and EU research mobility programs; (5) to establish the Institute for Peace Studies on the premises of Caucasus University and build a networks among the universities; (6) to promote peace studies research by conducting International Peace Conference in Tbilisi and launching scholarly journal in Peace Studies; (7) to further raise awareness and understanding of peace processes in conflict-affected regions of Georgia by conducting training for regional university students. These objectives will be achieved through producing the principal outputs and during the lifetime of the project, it will have impact on 16 Georgian professors whose capacity will be increased through study tours and collaboration with 8 European colleagues; 400 potential beneficiary students who will be offered the opportunity to complete Peace Studies courses (4 new and 12 upgraded existing courses); 32 students’ skills and competences increased who will be selected for internships in Georgia (16 students) and for research mobility programs in EU (16 students); 80 regional university students awareness concerning peace processes will be raised through 4 regional training cycles in conflict-affected areas; about 100 stakeholders informed about project outcomes through International Peace Conference, Project launch and final conferences.

This proposal seeks to enhance the capabilities of the EU for implementing conflict prevention and peacebuilding interventions through sustainable, comprehensive and innovative civilian means. It intends to address some of the dilemmas and paradoxes of external interventions that aim for local ownership in third countries, by exploring principles, processes and tools that can enhance EU capabilities. This will be achieved through the project’s Review, Reflect, Recommend and Innovate objectives. ‘Review’ will assess past and ongoing conflict prevention and peacebuilding initiatives of the EU and its partners, focusing on three types of EU interventions: multi-track diplomacy, security sector reform, and governance reform. The assessment will be based on field research in Georgia, Mali, Ukraine and Yemen, and desk reviews looking beyond these countries. ‘Reflect’ will create a ‘community of practice’ providing forums for dialogue that will bring together policymakers, civilian and military practitioners, academic experts and beneficiaries of EU interventions. These will validate and apply the evidence base by focusing on cross-cutting themes: local ownership, gender, multi-stakeholder coherence, civil-military synergies and ICTs. ‘Recommend’ will elaborate the project findings into a tailored set of recommendations and enhance their impact through direct policy engagement and an international dissemination strategy. ‘Innovate’ will contribute significantly to civilian conflict prevention and peacebuilding by identifying research priorities and tools, and enhancing the potential of ICTs. The project Whole-of-Society Approach to Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding is a conscious attempt to address the relationships of peacebuilding actors within a wider cultural and institutional context. It deals with issues of coordination, synergies and inclusivity of peacebuilding efforts, where diverse stakeholders have a role to play in the process.

The overall aim of the proposed project is to improve quality of public health and social services in partner countries through educating qualified interdisciplinary specialists, researchers and academics.The objectives of the proposed project are:1. Comparative analysis of the PhD program structure across participating countries and respective universities and their compatibility with EU teaching schemes. 2. Planning and harmonization of PhD programs in Public Health and Social sciences in Partner universities. 3. Development of course contents, syllabi, learning outcomes and research plan, tailor-made for individual partner universities. 4. Website development, creation of online resources and e-learning courses for PhD students. 5. Training of staff in EU universities in teaching, IT knowledge, research skills and project supervision in EU universities.6. Establishment of a fully structured PhD program in Public Health and Social Sciences and call for PhD students as a pilot program. 7. Development and submission for approval to appropriate authorities the passport and code of specialty.8. Dissemination of project activities through website, interim and final conferences, paper publication. Through implementation of the project highly qualified professionals (researchers and academics) in public health and social services will be trained, that will have extensive interdisciplinary knowledge in particular fields addressing at the same time health issues of population, social determinants of health and applied social sciences. Scientifically proved explanations and solutions to the existing problems in the mentioned fields will eventually lead to the improvement of health and social services in Armenia and Georgia. Through this project the existing PhD programs will be harmonized, restructured and will contain specific educational components, relevant for each institution and each field of study, thus ensuring interdisciplinarity.

The general aim of the proposed project is to enhance the quality of higher education by developing and implementing technology - enhanced teaching and learning in Georgian Higher Education Institutions. It aims to empower academic staff at Georgian HEIs in the innovative educational technology adoption in curriculum reform and course design; to improve the level of competences and skills in HEIs by developing new and innovative education programmes and providing trainings for academic staff to enhance their digital competences and skills’; to diversify the delivery methods, including on-line/blended teaching.The specific objectives of the project are: To Design and pilot new online/blended courses for GE HEIs BA and MA programs in line with EU best practices; To Design and conduct F2F/online/blended professional development training courses for GE HEI faculty and online instructors; To develop a common platform for online teaching and learning for GE HEIs; To disseminate best practices at institutional and national level via online platform, in-service teacher trainings and National Conference.The main target groups are students, academic staff and pre-/in-service teachers. All the activities within the project are planned in a way to address the needs of these target groups, which lead to the achievement of the overall objective of the project - to enhance the quality of higher education by developing and implementing technology - enhanced teaching and learning in Georgian Higher Education Institutions.GE institutions within the proposed project consider extremely important to develop and implement technology-enhanced learning and innovative teaching and learning strategies for the capacity building in higher education and creating conditions for learning and teaching in digital environment.