The DIRE-MED project sought to establish, through university cooperation, a lasting relationship of mutual trust and intercultural awareness between the countries of the Mediterranean, promoting the mobility of people, exchange and, in the long term, greater economic and cultural integration in the region region.During its lifetime, DIRE-MED has:- developed a collection of good practices in terms of international mobility management.(https://www.diremedproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/574184_D1.2_recueil-BP-1.pdf)- defined an internationalization framework and an action plan to facilitate exchanges of students, academic and non-academic staff of HEIs in the Mediterranean Bassin.(https://www.diremedproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/574184_D2.1_cadreinternationalisation.pdf)- strengthened the capacities of the staff of the International Relations Offices of HEIs in Partner Countries, in order to configure them as “Offices of international opportunities” through training seminars, training visits and workshops at the local level.(https://www.diremedproject.eu/leprojet/renforcement-des-capacites-du-personnel/)- set up 69 mobilities: 32 student mobilities and 37 staff mobilities (20 academic staff and 17 administrative staff). 8 were made in the North / South direction, 16 in the South / North direction and 45 in the South / South direction.(https://www.diremedproject.eu/mobilites/)- organized 2 intercultural dialogue events to articulate university-society cooperation through the promotion of intercultural dialogue (https://www.diremedproject.eu/le-projet/promotion-du-dialoguesocial-et-interculturel/). The first one hold in Tangiers and the second one online, due to the pandemic crisis.- defined recommendations at the national level of each of the 3 Maghreb countries and at the regional level. (https://www.diremedproject.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2021/03/574184_D2_3_recommandations.pdf)Finally, the partners have defined a sustainability plan to ensure the sustainability of theachievements of the project beyond the end of the project. (https://www.diremedproject.eu/leprojet/plan-de-soutenabilite/).

"The project ""Creation of Digital Capacities for the Management of Quality Assurance in Algerian Higher Education"" (DIGITAQ) aims to provide quality assurance activities in Algeria with a networked information system based on a national database, capable of meeting all operational and even prospective needs. Indeed, DIGITAQ makes it possible to perpetuate the culture and management through quality assurance in Algerian universities with the help of a digital medium facilitating the collection and processing of data. The project intends to act at different levels (local, national and international), while building on the achievements and achievements of Algerian universities. The aim is to design a federative and collaborative system for managing the information generated by the activities and the quality assurance programme. Thanks to the QA platform, each stakeholder, wherever they are, can access an unprecedented amount of information. The innovative nature of the DIGITAQ project will enable decision-makers and managers of HEIs to have access to indicators grouped together in a dashboard allowing them to monitor and control all their activities.Moreover, the networking of all the Quality Assurance Commissions will contribute to developing collaboration between Algerian universities among themselves but also with European partners. The overall objective of the DIGITAQ project is to perpetuate the culture and management through quality assurance in Algerian universities with the help of a digital medium facilitating the collection and processing of data."

ESAGOV aims at reinforcing the quality approach of governance in Algerian universities, starting from the construction of the university programme. The specific objectives are:- Strenghtening the role of universities in defining their own missions;- Strengthening the strategic skills of university leaders and academic and administrative staff;- Strengthening the evaluation mechanism and the quality approach within the universities.To this end, a first phase of research will be conducted through a comparative survey / benchmarking and a deepening of the external evaluation for the state of the art (WP1). The research will enable Algerian universities to define their action plan in order to elaborate the university programme (WP2). Staff capacity building will be conducted through modular training followed by three local training workshops and field visits in Europe (WP3). Staff capacity building will be completed within their own universities through local-level training of trainers (WP4). The project will then focus on each Algerian institution managing the pilot activities described in the action plans developed and defined in WP2. These pilot activities aims to build the university programme (WP5) and relies on the collaboration of European peers and on the consultation and participating of the different Ministries. In the short-term, this will strenghten the skills of the university staff in terms of governance and quality assurance, while contributing to the development of leadership engagement. In the long term, ESAGOV will increase the awareness of the benefits of governance and its challenges at University and institutional level, on both a national and regional scale.

"During the last EU-South Med Seminar on Recognition of credits and qualifications, organized by the European Commission (Brussels 1st - 2nd June 2015), the need for the revitalization of the MERIC network, as a means for a stronger cooperation between the European region and the Mediterranean one, was mentioned extensively. The EC encouraged France and Italy to submit an Erasmus+ project to implement capacity-building activities to reactivate the network, thus fostering the dialogue in the region and between the two regions.In recent years, reforms in higher education in the south Med countries aiming at the harmonization of the higher education systems, based on the Bologna structure of degrees implemented in the ""European Higher Education Area-EHEA”, have generated some issues linked to recognition. In fact, an increasing number of students are going to study abroad. This makes recognition of credits and qualifications an important and urgent issue.Moreover, the current refugee crisis is high in the agenda in Europe and the South Med countries. The MERIC-Net project will address the recognition of refugees’ qualifications and the practical challenges related to it. The European experience will contribute to the sharing and developing of a common methodology in the Southern Mediterranean countries, in order to facilitate the integration of refugees and displaced people.The reactivation of the MERIC network would be a first step towards an enhanced cooperation between the two shores of the Mediterranean, and on a larger scale with the European Union. The existence of national recognition centres in the region would represent an asset in a contest of great mobility. In fact, the MERIC-Net project would achieve the aim of shared information, building of mutual trust, facilitating thus smooth recognition. The reactivation of the MERIC network will allow all partners to share their experiences, official information and to build direct and permanent contacts."