Higher education governance and its autonomy is strongly enhanced by the effective and convincing accountability, transparency and financial sustainability. Discussions on the university governance and autonomy throughout HEIs in Europe are coming as a response to diverse challenges at the different country’s context. As a result, the need for gaining and enhancing public trust in higher education became manifest to develop appropriate forms of transparency and accountability of both public and private institutions. An initiative to form a consortium came as response to address these challenges through the project Strengthening university autonomy and increasing accountability and transparency of Western Balkans Universities /STAND project .The concept entails investing in the strengthening the mechanisms that ensures the long-term sustainability of university autonomy, transparency and accountability. The project foresees cooperation between HEIs in the WB region, their respective ministries and program country partners and contributes to the increasing of professional capacities of HEI staff in partnering HEIs. As structural project it will support reflecting on standards at EU partners and enhancing them at WB institutions through intensified regular academic and management exchange of good practice and sustainable networking between EU-WB partners. A mix of bottom-up and top-down approach that will be used in the project, fosters the dialogue between universities and ministries, and thus enables the consortium to contribute more effectively to the project implementation and sustainability to strengthen the autonomy of Western Balkans higher education institutions. The project aims to reach up to 50,000 persons engaged in higher education and other related activities in Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro and abroad through its dissemination activities.

“HOW CAN THE EU INVIGORATE ITS ENLARGEMENT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY TO ENHANCE EUROPE’S RESILIENCE?”. InvigoratEU aims at finding answers to this question by pursuing three overarching goals: Our first goal is (1) to investigate HOW TO REFORM the EU’s enlargement strategy in a new geopolitical phase, HOW TO RESPOND to other actors’ geopolitical ambitions in the Eastern Neighbourhood and Western Balkans, and HOW TO REBUILD the EU’s foreign policy arsenal in view of a new era of military threats (triple “R” approach) combining the modernisation and geopolitical logics of EU enlargement, leading to new data – e.g. a public opinion survey in Ukraine, a set of scenarios, an external influence index (Russia, China, Turkey), and a social policy compliance and cohesion scoreboard. Our second goal is (2) to elaborate an EVIDENCE-BASED, FORWARD-LOOKING VISION FOR THE EU’s POLITICAL AGENDA AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS FOR CO-DESIGNING A MULTIDIMENSIONAL TOOLBOX (i.e. two tailor-made toolkits), together with InvigoratEU´s Expert Hub, Civil Society (CS) Network, Youth Labs, Workshops for Young Professionals and Policy Debates in a gaming set up, which will result in context-sensitive and actionable policy recommendations for European and national political stakeholders and (young) European citizens in particular. Our third goal is (3) to deploy a CDE (communication, dissemination and exploitation) strategy AIMING AT RECOMMENDATIONS FROM DAY 1 to maximize our scientific, policy and societal impact in invigorating the EU´s enlargement and neighbourhood policies to enhance Europe´s resilience. ULTIMATELY, INVIGORATEU IS A DELIBERATELY LARGE CONSORTIUM respecting THE DIVERSITY OF EUROPE and POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES; 7 out of 18 are from GEORGIA, MOLDOVA, UKRAINE, and the Western Balkans (NORTH MACEDONIA, MONTENEGRO, SERBIA), COMPLEMENTED BY our CS Network of 9 representatives from all Western Balkan countries, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Under GN5-FPA, GN5-2 continues delivering expanded, cost effective, secure and resilient connectivity for unconstrained capacity ahead of demand in the backbone network and NREN access in multiples of 100Gbps targeting Terabit/s connectivity where needed. GN5-2 will scale its digital service portfolio to changing environments, by prototyping, piloting and, where appropriate, procuring new online above-the-net services to enable researchers and students’ access to applications that support multidomain data-driven, evidence-based and effective collaboration across virtual research teams, worldwide. It will deliver pervasive, innovative and distributed trust and identity infrastructure and services taking into account Open Science and eIDAS, to achieve strategic positioning of T&I as a key enabler of research and education collaboration within Europe. GN5-2 will reinforce the network security and its operation in a federated approach, and foster collaborations to innovate and strengthen Europe’s sustainable connectivity with other world regions. GN5-2 will address Horizon Europe’s priorities in areas such as data security and access control, innovation, inclusion, and DNSH, and will expand NRENs' users beyond traditional scientific and research communities, enabling networking and access to the common European data spaces, and preparing non-traditional use of fiber: sensing technologies, Quantum, Time/Frequency distribution. GN5-2 will ensure access to the valued services required for Open Science, disseminate learning and training, and build community as well as align with EU policies and ongoing participation with standardisation bodies. GN5-2 can offer its distinctive services due to its human network of professionals, in a consortium with a deep understanding of evolving user requirements. Knowledge and experience are shared within this community, to constantly enhance quality and security of services indispensable to the ERA, instrumental to EU strategic autonomy

Dangerous goods (DG) are materials that, due to their characteristics, can constitute a risk to people, animals or the environment. The involvement of DG in an accident could lead to fires, explosions and the release of toxic gases, producing serious consequences to human health and the environment. In order to diminish risks, the transport of dangerous goods (TDG) in Europe is subjected to different regulations with the constant raising need for educated and skilled personnel.The main aims and specific objectives of the project are: -To identify key risks of the transport of dangerous goods (TDG) by road in WB partner countries according to different regulations ;-To improve existing and develop new curricula for undergraduate and master studies in accordance with Bologna requirements and national accreditation standards implementing new subjects studying the TDG by road. These subjects should cover both provisions concerning dangerous goods and provisions concerning transport equipment and transport operations. -To establish Training Centers within WB HEIs.The most important results of the project will be the modernization of the existing curricula in the part related to the TDG and the handling of DG at all WB partner institutions. Among other things, the curriculum should increase students' awareness of the dangers that can occur when dangerous goods are transported and handled improperly. Direct beneficiaries of the project include 116 trained teaching staff, 120 enrolled students, 240 trained TDG professionals and the wider community (TDG stakeholders, public institutions, scientific community etc.)Type and number of outputs include 8 new/modernized study programs, 45 newly implemented TDG related courses, 8 new labs.