TRIGGER project is targeted to “strengthening of relations between HEIs and the wider economic and social environment” as a multi-country project within one single region –Central Asia, involving three countries (Kazakhstan; Uzbekistan; Tajikistan) from this region. The main problems in these countries are connected especially to low economic growth represented by slow improvement of economics performance; country inequalities; low level of competitiveness and innovation. Main aim of TRIGGGER project is to contribute to economics growth through creating the favourable conditions for better employability of graduates in Central Asia countries. It will be reached through support of HEI preparedness for future challenges especially related to the entrepreneurial and innovative nature of their higher education environment; enhancement of Entrepreneurship Education and Skills Development; establishment/enhancement the Careers, Employability and Enterprise Services; strengthening the relations outside HEIs. TRIGGER is built on two EC initiatives: HEInnovate and EntreComp and consists of six WPs focused on Assessment of the HEI preparedness for future challenges; Enhancing Entrepreneurship Education and Skills Development; Establishment/Enhancement of the Careers, Employability and Enterprise Services; Quality Assurance and Evaluation and Dissemination & Exploitation & Sustainability.The project consortium consists of 11 HEIs from three Central Asia countries, 3 HEIs from three EU countries, one SME and one non-profit organization from the EU.TRIGGER will have significant impact on Central Asia countries especially on HEI teachers, students; administrators; top management; relevant businesses and R&D institutions, other universities; decision makers; educational policy makers at national, regional and community level and representatives of regional and local authorities dealing with education.

The Bologna process and EHEA brought necessary reforms to improve engineering education in Russia and Tajikistan. But despite obvious increase in attractiveness for young people engineering education is still facing many challenges. Drop-out rate among students majoring in engineering is almost 25%, employment rates for bachelor graduates decreases due to unwillingness of industry to employ engineers with 4 years of education, teaching staff is ageing and universities fail to create an effective system to retain young PhD graduates in engineering disciplines to perform teaching and research. One of the major unsolved problems behind these challenges is the deterioration of teacher training system in PC universities and irrelevance of teaching methods employed for engineering disciplines in Russia and Tajikistan. The answer to this problem is two-fold – modernization of pedagogic training of PhD students and development of sustainable system of lifelong education for university teachers of engineering disciplines. EXTEND seeks to promote a change in a system of pedagogic training of university teachers in engineering in RF and TJK through modernization of PhD programs curriculum and development of sustainable system of teacher re-training and consultation support by Network of Centres of Excellence in Engineering Education. The priority aim of the EXTEND project is to enhance the quality and the effectiveness of teaching. The project is targeted at solving of three specific problems: 1)The development of comprehensive model and descriptor of the competences of the university teacher of engineering disciplines;2) The establishment of Network of Centres of Excellence in Engineering Education (EXTEND centres) offering training courses, research and consultations in teaching engineering disciplines in PC HEI. 3) The development of training program for PhD students and university teachers in teaching engineering disciplines including MOOC.

"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"