The B-learning Uzbekistan Veterinary Network / BUzNet project will be implemented by a consortium of 4 European HEIs and 4 Uzbek HEIs. The general objective of the project is to increase the life standards of common Uzbek people through better veterinary and zootechnical teaching, which will ultimately result in better technical support for local herds’ owners and safer animal products reaching the general society. And this will be accomplished taking into account the local ecological limitations and using advance teaching techniques of practical subjects in veterinary/animal sciences. To do this we must first be sure about what we are dealing with, and so, a series of inquiries and local visits of European experts will be done in order to have a clear idea of the exact Uzbek situation in veterinary farm animal clinic and surgery and milk quality control. Then, a group of Uzbek teachers will be trained in European HEIs in new ways of teaching practical subjects and using B learning strategies to help doing so. Meanwhile, an updating of the present Uzbek curricula and local facilities present in Uzbek HEIs will be done. This way it will be possible to fully implement the new teaching strategies by the third and last year of the project. The core of the project will be the use of a B-learning interface (BLUzVet) that will create a learning community consisting of all members of the project consortium, teachers, students and veterinarians. The information is created by the students during practical classes under teachers supervision, commented by all consortium members and will be used in students’ examinations. In the future this system will be extended to members from other countries and regions. The network formed within this project agglutinates Veterinary HEIs from different backgrounds and will improve the setting of new veterinary, animal production management and milk quality control teaching standards in Uzbekistan and beyond.

Armenia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan have shared a common historical background. Since their independence in the 90s, agriculture has undergone a period of transformation. The social, economic and political changes have had an impact on the entire higher education system.TOPAS aims at filling the gap within a common former soviet inherited agricultural sciences higher education system in these countries and practical training in real working environment to provide a better match between job market needs and the qualifications offered. The vocationally oriented practical programs should be introduced and improved based on learning outcomes and competencies approach with flexible learning pathways and permeability among the different agrarian management programs. Within the program partnership between universities and stakeholders (farm industry and associations) will be fostered.A wide-range of activities will facilitate the transition from teacher centered knowledge-based form of education to student-centered practice based education in Agrarian studies and hence employability by enhancing the cooperation between universities and agriculture enterprises through adequate internship schemes with government support to recognize formal and informal learning and endorse ECQIP.Another innovative aspect of the project is the creation of a databank for applied sciences on the field of agriculture management for teaching purposes in the field of data collection of students, teachers and researchers. This databank will consist of data on production inputs, costs and outputs of major cash crops of these countries and will offer valid data for agricultural management study courses.The experience of the last decade showed, that missing practical orientation and knowledge of BA and MA students is one of the most important obstacles for professional qualification. While curricula development was well adapted in many fields, the cooperation with farms and industry has to be built up

The project aims to support Uzbekistan in development and implementation of study curricula, which serves needs of public and private sector stakeholders of bioeconomy sectors for professionals, who are able to link the potential of natural resources, objectives of bioeconomy related sectors of national economy, and socio-economic interests of the society, and are able to plan, build and maintain bioeconomy policy and bioeconomy innovation ecosystem, in which sustainable use of natural resources is in the focus.Overall aim: To contribute to the development of sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth in Uzbekistan. Work packages:WP1. Detailed needs analysisWP2. Elaboration of the master study programme in the bioeconomy WP3. Increase of CA universities teaching and technical capacity WP4. Implementation of the master study programme WP5. MSP and the project quality assurance and measurement tools WP6. Publicity, dissemination and exploitation WP7. Management and coordinationMain outcomes and outputs:WP1: D1.1. Report – in depths study.WP2: D2.1. New bioeconomy related master curricula (120 ECTS) elaborated and licensed; D2.2. Set of new bioeconomy related master curricula documentation and materials.WP3: D3.1. 6 study visits held, 18 UZ HEIs teachers and 3 MARU representatives participated (in teach visit); D3.2. Teaching capacities improved – 3 video conference classes developed, scientific data base licences acquired for 3 UZ HEI.WP4, D4.1. Pilot studies provided, at least 24 students participated; D4.2. 3 open master classes provided.WP5, D5.1. MSP quality assurance methodology (QAM); D5.2. External expert assessment of the project progress, quality, results applicability; D 5.3. The results sustainability plan.WP6. D6.1. The website; D6.2. 12 TV and radio broadcasts; D6.3. 36 publications; D6.4. 2 bioeconomy forums, at least 100 participants (in total).

"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"