The Nizami project concerns the modernization of doctoral education, research and internationalization of HEIs in Azerbaijan. This project intends to answer to the urgent need for Azerbaijan universities to revise the rules and content of organizing doctoral studies within Bologna process documents in terms of their consistency, especially on ensuring science and research provisions in relevance with European standards, to fulfill the students' mobility and internationalzation of research.The consortium will achieve the objectives by restructuring the doctoral education through : (a) the organisation of doctoral schools within the HEIS and at the National level, (b) insuring high standards in doctoral education, (c) improving internationalization.A standardisation and modernization of doctoral education will lead to a better recognition from Europe of the quality of research provided by the HEIs and research institutions of Azerbaijan. Therefore, an enhance in collaboration between Europe and Azerbaijan can be predicted. As well, a greater ease of international mobility for PhD students, young researchers and staff should be reached.On a national level, the PhD students should inhance their professional skills to meet the needs of the local, regional and national markets.

PETRA project's wider objective is to promote teaching and learning excellence in Azerbaijan. Specific objectives are: (1) Building Capacity for Developing Teaching and Learning Processes to meet pedagogical and technological needs and (2) Improving and Providing Quality Teaching and Learning through innovative technology, promoting research, improving active learning, and establishing long-term partnerships with European universities. The project targets two private, two public universities and four state universities in Azerbaijan with a key objective to improve their quality of teaching and learning.It aims to build human resource capacity in teaching, research, and developing/improving necessary infrastructure to provide an environment for effective learning. The most up-do-date planning, development and management resources have been utilized for these activities and adapted to the needs of the student body.8 Teaching and Learning Centres (TLCs) aimed at guiding and enhancing the teaching and learning process have been established at each member university in Azerbaijan, because one of the main aims of this project is to assure the quality of education, teaching and learning processes. Building on the Project objective to enhance the quality of teaching and research towards excellence, the TLC's updated equipment are used to incorporate last generation teaching tools and advanced technology, by developing human resource capacity and international partnerships, and developing students' learning skills through on-line active learning.The project results also include the development of a 3-year strategy plan, with a detailed structure and activity plan designed as a result of learning experience in European countries. The trainers and pilots incorporated the necessary skills for training selected faculty for the final purpose of promoting on-line education as a key element in professional development. A broad assortment of trainings and workshops on enhancing research competence have been provided to the selected trainers, and students of target universities participating on the pilots which have been replicated to selected faculty (and students) included on the TLC plans.Last but not least, new collaboration agreements are in place between EU Universities and Azerbaijan partners for the initial team development of credit courses and research activities.

"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"