During the last decades the Iraqi HE System has suffered for a remarkable drop of quality and competitiveness. Education and cultural heritage have been seriously threatened and both teaching quality and access to education have been subjected to a dramatic decline. The WALADU project aims to improve the HE in the field of the Humanities and increase students' opportunities in the Iraqi labour market. The Consortium will work in line with a shared and EU-aligned roadmap in order to develop and modernize the Iraqi HEIs in the fields of archaeology and history at BA level. It will foster long-term international collaborations between Iraqi and EU HEIs to allow students and academics to grow up in an international environment. The general structure of the project is a combination of research and practical activities starting from an analysis of problems and needs in Iraqi HEIs, as well as the identification of local stakeholders. Thanks to the definition of an efficient Training System Methodology and training activities, Iraqi teachers, researchers and administrative staff will improve their competencies. The project will develop and implement new teaching units and materials for the new BA courses and make them available on the WALADU and Iraqi HEIs websites. WALADU will also provide universities with libraries (WALib) and laboratories (WALab) equipped with advanced technical facilities which will support BA students’ education. WALADU will activate new internship programs, in collaboration with the Iraqi Ministry of HE and SBAH, for future employment in the HE and cultural heritage fields, and it will create an international network (ASEN) to reinforce collaboration and foster future exchange programs between Iraq and EU.During the project period and beyond its lifetime, products and results will be disseminated at national and international level, in order to ensure project continuity, sustainability and possible replicability in other fields and countries

"The BANUU project originates from the experience of WALADU, a CBHE joint project financed in 2016 including part of the BANUU consortium, which has allowed to improve the teaching quality and structure of BA courses in Archaeology in Iraq. During this project, the partners observed several gaps and shortcomings concerning student employability due to the lack of structured University-enterprise connections. The BANUU consortium therefore aims at developing a Structural Project that involving the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research as full partner can contribute to the improvement of the students’ employability in the field of Humanities in Iraq by creating new pathways of cooperation between Universities and the public and enterprise sectors. As main results, BANUU will create a national framework for designing and implementing internships in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in Iraq as well new pathways to enhance Iraqi students’ transversal skills (focus on entrepreneurial skills). The new frameworks and pathways will be piloted through internships, seminars and practical activities in 3 specific strategic sectors through a pedagogical strategy based on a ""learning by doing"" phylosophy and a ""training of trainers"" approach. Finally, the results of this piloting phase will be framed at national level strenghtening the relations between HEIs (Universities, Ministry) and the wider national economic and social environment. In particular, this result will be pursued by the creation of a permanent Inter-Ministerial commission that will be in charge of drafting new policies on public-private cooperation in the field of Humanities. The creation of these new institutionalised and structured spaces in which Universities and Enterprises can share experiences, ideas and reach a common vision as the basis for drafting comprehensive agreements and contracts, represents a key opportunity in terms of ensuring the project long-term impact and sustainability."