E-TALEB is a structural project aiming at developing Lebanese Professional Standards in Teaching and Learning and cooperating for innovation and exchange of good practices and experiences relevant to similar frameworks established in Europe.The main objective of this project is to support the initial and continuing professional development of staff engaged in teaching and foster dynamic approaches to teaching and learning through creativity, innovation and continuous development in diverse academic disciplines and/or professional settings. The project will support in creating a community of researchers in different disciplines who share inter and intra university practices in teaching and learning.E-TALEB will acknowledge the variety and quality of teaching, learning and assessment practices that support and underpin student learning including instructional technology. It will also demonstrate to students and other stakeholders the professionalism that staff and institutions bring to teaching and their support for student learning. As a result, the project will have high national impact, providing at once many outcomes: - Establishing Professional Standards Framework in Teaching & Learning LBPSF;- Offering Post-Graduate Certificate Programme in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education for Faculty members;- Collaborating interuniversity activities centered on training and educational programs; - Creating Centers for Teaching Excellence inside each of the participating universities supporting faculty and students in their teaching and learning activities;- Supporting the universities in their accreditation programs by having a formal process for teaching and learning;- Developing human capital and talented experts in teaching and learning in the participating countries;- Sustaining the competitiveness of the Higher Education field in Lebanon, the Middle East and participating EU countries;- Publishing the Lebanese Journals on Teaching and Learning.

The economic crisis and pandemic in South Mediterranean and sub-Saharan countries have put the HEIs in a challenge to accommodate for the new requirements of online teaching. The RL4Eng project aims to improve the quality of higher education in third countries and make it more relevant into the today’s digital transformation world through establishing Remote and Virtual Laboratories for Teaching and Training Engineering Students to modernize the current teaching approaches and improve the digital and entrepreneurial capacities of both students and teachers in South Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan HEIs. The project’s contribution to the priorities of the call includes the digital transformation under which digital education is the focus of the project. Online teaching for laboratories has been implemented in EU countries with successful outcomes. The involvement of different European Universities will help integrate good practices and minimise potential risks in implementing the RL4Eng project. South Mediterranean HEIs have identified the necessity of training with numerous initiatives available in the European system. Few Research is available on the effective delivery of remote labs and take-home labs. The project involves several workpackages in efforts made to elevate the knowledge of remote labs and take-home labs in the partners institutions via capacity building for students, staff and faculty and share of experiences. A remote lab will be established in each country of the partners institutions and a take-home lab will be established in each HEI of the partner countries. The very nature of remote labs, and take-home labs makes them sustainable and easily scalable as they becomes part of the university structure and receives part of its budget. Moreover, the nature of the remote labs makes them sustainable as they are accessible from everywhere and could be used for both teaching and for research.

This project aims at enhancing and reinforcing the role and potential of HEIs in the development of employability in the Mediterranean countries by adopting a transversal entrepreneurial mind-set at the HEIs and by opening and structuring the dialogue between the universities, the enterprises and the policy makers, addressing in this way the four priority actions established by the EC, OECD and ETF report:- Establish inter-ministerial commissions for entrepreneurial learning- Establish a platform for the identification and exchange of good practices - Strengthen co-operation among HEIs and promote links with business to foster entrepreneurship. Teacher networks with interest in entrepreneurship promotion should be encouraged and supported- Establish an accredited Southern Mediterranean entrepreneurship network paying a particular attention to the gender dimension.

The partner countries involved in this proposal, namely Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq (but also some of the Programme Countries involved, such as Turkey and Germany) are experiencing a very critical situation due to the high number of refugees present on their territory: most of these are Syrian citizens, and include a high percentage of former University students who had to interrupt their academic curriculum.The main specific objective of RESCUE is to help the Partner Country Universities in structuring an effective response to this problem, by creating ad hoc units (the Refugee Student Operational Support Unit – R-SOS), whose mission is to structure specific services supporting the refugee students in resuming their academic training path. The analysis carried out by the target Universities has shown that each one of them has different approaches and constraints vis-à-vis this problem, therefore ad hoc solutions must be implemented in each one of them.Hence each EU university with an experience in dealing with this issue has cooperated with the Universities of one specific MENA Country: TU Berlin supported the Lebanese Universities, Aydin University supported the Jordanian Universities whereas Barcelona University supported the Iraqi Universities.One major change in the partnership composition was made in order to increase the project impact in terms of refugees to be reached: in January 2019 the Lebanese International University was added as a partner and had to make a big effort to catch up with the other partners. Once the R-SOS units have become operational during the first half of 2019, the services they deliver help the refugee students in resuming their academic training path, in some cases by accessing the standard curricula on the same basis as all the other students, in some other cases by following ad hoc training courses providing them with basic skills and competencies useful for employment purposes.Therefore the setting up of the R-SOS units is helping in improving the situation of the refugee students either by supporting them in getting a job in the hosting countries either in preparing them for returning to their origin country once the crisis is over.

Hospital waste poses enormous environmental problems in industrialized and underdeveloped countries, especially in Mediterranean countries like Lebanon. Any discharge of genotoxic waste or hazardous component to the environment will have catastrophic ecological consequences. Thus, the selection of an appropriate hospital wastewater treatment technology is crucial and aims to remove problematic particles or compounds rather than diluting them with residential wastewater streams and re-emit them into the environment.Since the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011 and after its exacerbation in 2015, Lebanon has exploited its natural resources more and the Lebanese hospitals have produced more hazardous waste, which has harmful environmental and social impacts. To overcome this serious problem, radical solutions should be urgently implemented. SWaTH project can be a real and effective solution.With the joint help of the EU partners, the following will be completed:1) Needs analysis on the methods currently used in Lebanon for the treatment of hospital wastewater2) Evaluate the compliance level of these methods with European and international standards based on the benchmark analysis of the most efficient wastewater treatment techniques currently used in Europe.3) Address a recommendation letter to the concerned Ministries and Syndicates4) Long-term internships for Lebanese students.5) Training and workshops for Lebanese Faculty members.6) Purchase and establish a pioneering wastewater treatment facility in five of the best Lebanese Universities.7) Carry out social and environmental life cycle analyses.The Consortium will comprise five European higher education institutions (UGR, KTH, ULR, UdL, and UOULU), one small and medium sized European enterprise (PLAS), and five Lebanese higher education institutions (UOB, LU, LAU, USEK, and NDU).