This project aims to build capacity, develop and implement sustainable tools to address the national priorities in Uzbekistan (UZB) related to the “Sustainable growth and jobs” (the subcategory of “Knowledge triangle, innovation”) within the Food sector. The specific objectives and activities of the project are designed to educate academic and industrial experts and establish a direct link between research and food production for boosting the transition of outdated food production technologies in the country towards sustainable food production for the future with minimized environmental impact.The project will engage world-leading food scientists from the EU partner HEIs to address the two most urgent problems in the food sector related, 1) capacity building among food science teachers and researchers and 2) establishment of new and innovative collaborations between HEIs, research institutes and the food industry. These will be achieved through a modernization and strengthening academic and research skills of food science teachers and researchers at HEIs in UZB according to high EU standards and by developing new and mutually beneficial collaboration strategies between HEIs and food industries, which will create new jobs and increase employability of students. Research and teaching personnel from UZB will be trained in EU HEIs laboratories to address sustainable food production issues such as the re-use of drinking water, development of alternative dietary protein sources to replace animal proteins, increased digestibility and palatability of plant protein and other plant foods. In order to enable these, the specific tasks will be executed in a pre-defined order within the project. The specific tasks include:1) conduct three consecutive trainings (later referred as camps), one per year, for the talented young professionals in the food science2) training of teaching staff, research staff and PhD students from UZB (later referred as train-the-trainer) at the EU HEIs.3) conduct open-door seminars and workshops to initiate useful networks (national and internationally) via presentations, pitches, brainstorming, and face-to-face discussions involving academic teachers, researchers and industrial experts to establish an innovative approach for sustainable growth of collaborations between HEIs, research institutes and food companies.4) establish a “Cluster of Advanced Topics in Food Science and Technology” for academic networking where teachers trained in EU will teach industrial experts 5) establish a “Uzbek Food Science and Technology Society”, which will secure post-project sustainability of the project outcomes. The society will be the main platform to gather industry, academia, and researchers for solving contemporary and future challenging problems of the food sector in the country and to sustain tight collaboration with the EU HEIs.

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.

Uzbekistan’s sector of higher education (HE) was in the transformation phase initiated by a government decree in the late 2012. The soviet style system of doctoral education (DrEd) was being replaced by a EHEA and ERA oriented system. At the time of initiating the reforms, Uzbek HE stakeholders turned to the European colleagues for assistance and expertise to implement planned changes in doctoral education. UZDOC, the first European project focused solely on the reform of doctoral education in Uzbekistan, was started under the coordination of UNICA, supported by the Uzbek Ministry of Higher Education eager to accelerate the reforms. We believe that after three years of successful project implementation, Uzbek sector of DrEd is prepared to push the reform in the next phase. UZDOC 2.0 structural project, in which the Uzbek Ministry of Higher Education is a partner, had the overall goal of furthering the quality of doctoral education in Uzbekistan higher education institutions (HEIs), building on the results of the 1st UZDOC project coordinated by UNICA. The Project consisted of four elements crucial for a successful reform of DrEd in Uzbekistan : institutional and structural support, integration of quality assurance elements and mechanisms, building and increasing the capacity for human resources, and creating better connections with the business and industry sector in Uzbekistan by reducing the skills gap between doctorate holders and the sector. UZDOC 2.0 had substantial impact on the capacity of participating Uzbek HEIs for development and modernisation of the quality of DrEd. The consortium was composed to provide best coverage of expertise from European institutions, to offer good geographical coverage, dissemination and exploitation potential, and involvement of diverse and mutually complementing Uzbek partners and stakeholders.We believe that by implementing the UZDOC 2.0 project, Uzbek DrEd sector became familiar with the latest European trends, integrated good practices and methodologies, and able to better respond to the challenges facing the Uzbek research and economy sectors.