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.

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).

The PSYchiatric disorders and COmorbidities caused by pollution in the MEDiterranean area (PsyCoMed) project proposes to build a research consortium to apply to a MSCA Staff Exchange program. The objective will be to characterise the role of anthropogenic pollutants in the Mediterranean area as a risk factor of neuropsychiatric disorders and comorbidity, and to determine the role of neuroinflammatory responses in the disease progression. The PsyCoMed consortium comprises 9 beneficiaries (7 academic,2 SMEs), and 4 third country (TC) partners. It puts together complementary expertise in neuroscience (academics) and analytical biology (SMEs). PsyCoMed consortium members already developed studies of pollutant effects and are specialists of the different fields of expertise and technical approaches to be uniquely combined within the framework of PsyCoMed. Part of them have been working together and already contributed to training through common education programs. PsyCoMed will deepen already existing and promote new collaborations to advance the Mediterranean Neuroscience. The MRSEI ANR funding will be crucial to set the final organization of the consortium and finely tune the design of clinical and experimental protocols, and the articulation between the different research groups and the SMEs. Reciprocal visits and a pre-kick-off meeting will be organised between all consortium partners. The innovation will be to propose a holistic vision to determine common overlapping mechanisms and neural circuits underlying pollutant-induced neuropsychiatric disorders and comorbid neurological diseases through a multi-scale (from molecular to clinical science), multi-modal (from mechanistic to behavioural approaches), and inter-sectoral strategy. The project will bind mechanistic and integrative preclinical investigations to clinical assessment of inflammatory processes occurring in psychiatric patients of the Mediterranean area. Lower vertebrate models will serve for high-throughput testing of pollutants on behaviors. In vitro and in vivo rodent models will be used to correlate the effects of pollutants on psychiatric symptoms with alterations of inflammatory pathways in psychiatric patients. PsyCoMed members will investigate neuroinflammatory mechanisms and determine neuronal plasticity and neural circuits at work in the brain areas affected by pollutants. The consortium will verify whether neurological disorders occur in sexually dimorphic and/or age dependent manner. Natural substances with therapeutic potential will finally be tested for their ability to restore healthy mechanisms and alleviate pathological symptoms in animal models. PsyCoMed offers a unique framework to build a network synergy between otherwise disparate and unconnected competencies by bringing together complementary expertise, themes and scientific practice on both sides of the Mediterranean area. The partners will share knowledge and know-how through secondments, conferences and workshops in support of PsyCoMed scientific objectives. This will improve exchanged staff’s skills and employability to the academic and private sectors. By proposing common protocols and experimental design, the participants will foster standardization of clinical and experimental procedures and diffusion of good laboratory practise. At a global level, the consortium will acquire the capacity to tackle complex neurobiological challenges, while building long-lasting collaborations. Finally, PsycoMed is in line with the recent implemented environment action programmes of the Europe Green Deal, e.g. the zero pollution action plan for water, air and soil and the EU4Health, as it will tackle the effects of pollution environment on mental health. It will also provide decision-makers with the ground for public health orientations with societal impact, one key objective of the 8th Environment Action monitoring framework.