The overall aim of the project proposal is improvement of student services at Georgian HEIs by means of establishing psychological counselling centers for students at target partner universities in all regions of Georgia. Specific objectives of the project are: a) establishment of psychological counselling centers at target partner HEIs for students; b) preparing and retraining staff to work at psychological counselling centers; c) elaboration of recommendations and legislation documentation for policy makers and governmental agencies of Georgia; d) raising mental health awareness among students and wider audience by running viral campaigns and information meetings will allow the raise of mental health awareness among students, who might feel intimidated or shy to ask for psychological help/mental health support and counselling; e) creation of Association of University Counselling Centers of Georgia, which will ensure inclusion of regional psychotherapists and counsellors, and most importantly, will support the sustainability of the project results after its completion.

Curriculum reform programs have been central to European Commission’s TEMPUS and ERASMUS programs. Although assessment of the courses was included in these programs, none offered to develop relevant innovative tools and methods to evaluate these new innovative student-centered courses. Moreover with relation to the formative assessment (FA) essential tenet needed in these environments, these projects have pointed to a growing need to deepen the knowledge of faculty regarding the optimal design and implementation of assessment in general and FA in particular. The ASSET consortium provides the knowledge and pedagogical expertise aimed at developing and piloting creative and innovative course assessment tools (CATs) and methods adapted to the learning environments in use, and improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning within the IL and GE HE system, thus, bridging the gap between current educational goals of teaching and learning, and assessment processes for the 21st century. The proposed ASSET project will develop IL and GE faculty skills in planning, preparing, producing, and integrating CATs in their courses including ICT-based virtual environments, by organizing training workshops for professional development, providing an ongoing support to further the sustainability of FA implementation, and disseminate the set CATs in their HEIs and beyond. The development of CATs will allow partner HEIs evaluating students' lifelong learning (LLL) skills, both in personal and social levels. Moreover, ASSET proposal is of relevance to the labor market and certainly offers flexibility when taking into account issues of lifelong learning, non-traditional learning, and other forms of nonformal educational experiences, in contrast to the SA approach. The project will raise the quality and relevance of the teaching/learning experience and thus education at large, in line with the student-centered approach that lies at the core of the Bologna process.

"Inclusive education has increasingly become a focus of debate in discussions about the development of educational policy and practice around the world. We can see today that in a large number of developed and developing countries they have started reformulating their policies to promote the inclusion of students with students with learning, physical or cultural differences into mainstream higher education. However, whereas the developed countries now have policies or laws promoting ""inclusive education,"" a number of developing countries continue to provide educational services to students with disabilities or from minority groups in ""segregated” universities and colleges. Despite changes in GE and IL legislation and the development of programs for students in vulnerable situation, in recognition of the importance of higher education for individuals, families, and society at large, is common to see low enrolment and high first-year dropout . Low enrolment and high dropout can be understood as the result of inadequate accessibility of HEIs, lack of support, adverse social attitudes and social isolation, as well as low financial capacity. Thus, DARE project would be the first initiative of this kind in IL and GE. Likewise, it extends the efforts of the TEMPUS project DOIT coordinated by GACE extending the concept of multiculturalism and diversity towards inclusive education comprising 3 specific disadvantaged groups (females, ethnic minorities and disable students). The project enhances access to education within and outside the classroom throughout a digital environment. Herein, courses already developed within the context of reinforcing the academic skills of target groups will be more accessible. The project reflects the importance to raise awareness on accessibility issues within IL and GE as well as the necessity to ensure the long-term effect impact of the project for the benefit of women in vulnerable situation, minority ethnic groups and disabled student population."

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.

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.