The ICT sector is one of the leading ones in the economy of Belarus. This has created a gap between the challenges of the global market & skills/competences ICT graduates have at entering the profession. The companies state the high level of professional knowledge of university graduates but low level of soft/transferable skills necessary to work in international teams. The aim of the project is to enhance employability of ICT master students & foster entrepreneurship & establishment of SMEs in ICT by modernising the existing master curriculum in ICT. The modernised MSc programme in ICT will be more labour-market & society oriented, practice-based, & student-centred training students in professional subjects leading to knowledge, hard skills & competencies in the profession with soft/transferable skills presupposing its interdisciplinarity. The project meets the agenda of the Yerevan Ministerial Communiqué of “ensuring educational opportunities to provide the competences and skills required for innovation & employment”. By enhancing quality & relevance of learning & teaching to the labour market & society demands the project will promote pedagogical innovation in student-centred learning environments & stronger link between teaching, learning & research central to the EHEA policies.The project will achieve 7 milestones: (1) upgraded professional & new soft skills courses, (2) study materials, (3) QA guidelines/procedures for the modernised MSc, (5) 3 intakes of students, (6) 8 international student projects, (7) measurements of pedagogical approaches & methods appliedThe project will produce impact at university level (beneficiaries are master students & teachers on modernised MSc programme), at society level (any person fitting master level study as a potential student of the modernised MSc, potential employers & wider society who will be users of services of successful SMEs established by the MSc graduates in future), at European & global level (ICT companies).

Belarus is in the process of building nuclear power generation with two reactors envisaged: construction of the first will be completed this year, construction of the second will finish in 2020. Higher Education in nuclear safety and radiation protection will be of utmost importance, hence appropriate curricula need to be developed and set in place. Aim of this project is the development of curricula at the Master level, in line with Bologna principles, to be accredited by the Ministry of education and adopted throughout the Country. To this aim, a number of Belarusian University, covering practically all the regions of the Country, have been involved in the project, and will serve both as developers and as “testing facilities” for the new curricula. The EU Universities involved all have a long-lasting and deep experience in the field, and have developed in the past their own curricula in the field. The expected results will be innovative two-year study program, including a special attention to practical training effected with a two prong approach: new, up to date didactic laboratories to be set up in all the Belarusian partner HEIs; traineeships in institutions and companies active in the field of nuclear safety and radiation protection. Special attention shall be focused on “training the trainers”, i.e., professional instruction and internship for the teachers-to-be. Ideally, a first generation of teachers will be formed during the three years of the project, and this first group of fully trained teachers will continue the work raising the new generations of instructors. The end result will be a Country-wide education framework in the field of nuclear safety and radiation protection. The impact on the Country is quite clear: the capability of handling the new nuclear industry safely and effective; the wider impact for Europe will be that a newcomer in the nuclear industry can be trusted to be capable to manage its nuclear potential.

The DUALBEL project aims to support the Belarusian partner institutions (Ministry of Education, National Institute of Higher Education, Universities and Enterprises) in the development and implementation of the dual study model including the legal and organisational framework in the Belarusian higher education system. In this way, the project provides modernization impulses for the Belarusian higher education system by taking into account the interests of the Belarusian labor market, creating the framework for labor-market-adequate study programs at Belarusian higher education institutions and thus increasing the employability of university graduates.In the first half of the project period, a study will be carried out to survey existing approaches to dual studies in Belarus. The study, in connection with further training measures for Belarusian project partners on dual studies at EU universities, will provide the necessary contribution to the development work and creation of the Belarusian model of dual studies. Parallel to this, dual model curricula for academic and in-company training will be developed and examined by the Belarusian Ministry of Education and released for implementation. In the second half of the project period, the new dual curricula in defined fields of study will be tested and evaluated as pilot projects in cooperation with partner companies in Belarus and disseminated to other Belarusian universities. The project is coordinated by Deggendorf Institute of Technology. From the EU, Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University, Satakunta University of Applied Sciences Pori, Latvian University Riga and University of Zilina are participating. In Belarus, the consortium consists of 11 universities, the National Institute of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Republican Institute of Vocational Education and 19 partner companies. The project is scheduled for a duration of 3 years.