The main PICASP objectives are connected to the enforcment of University-Enterprise Cooperation trough the involvment of the Business Community and particularly SMEs Entrepreneurs and Managers in the development and diffusion of new teaching methodologies including Practice Enterprise and MOOCs; Developing courses in Entrepreneurship and SME Management; Enhancing the exchanging of best practices with EU partners through mobility of academic and technical staff; Enforcing stakeholders’ involvement in curriculum development and graduates placement; Establishing Standards and Providing Quality assurance in didactics and sustainability.The network of universities in this project will support the implementation of Pilot Courses in HEI Project Partners verifying the sustainability and the possibilities for implementation in other partner countries. This will be positive not only in the field of Economic Activities but more generally among the partners how to design higher education, according to UE Standards. Furthermore, it will have a positive impact in the perspectives, for the Caspian Area, trigged by policies to implement Sustainable Development related to the Silky Road.

KUTEL Piloting venture will be aimed at reinforcing the role of Higher Education (HE) in Kazakhstan, strategic vehicle to boost economic growth, employment rate and then quality of life and social well-being of citizens. KUTEL promotes reform and modernization of HE through the introduction of a national Quality Assurance (QA) system for technology - enhanced learning (TeL), new and challenging in EU and in Kazakhstan, implementing accreditation standards, guidelines and procedures for QA of TeL courses and study programs at a national/international level. In so doing, KUTEL will contribute to the rise of students’ enrolment numbers despite the difficult conditions of the fluctuant economic growth through widespread use of e-learning methodologies and a high quality training offer. Core results which cope with existing needs and support national/EU priorities are: 1. Accreditation standards, guidelines and procedures for QA of TeL study programs development in Kazakhstan HE System according to EU practices; 2. Pilot Training addressed to Key Actors of Public/Private HE System, academic staff and QA HE accreditation bodies to enhance competences/skills to build up TEL QA Framework in study programs;3. Teaching methodologies modernized and reformed through the development of a Quality Assurance (QA) framework in blended learning; 4. EU TEL Roadmap for QA standard, Baseline Kazakhstan TEL QA Framework, Recommendations QA Framework will be further developed for a successful capacity building process. Prospected Impact: direct beneficiaries responsible for modernisation of HE involved in Pilot training min. 85 and those involved in each national exploitation event (about 40/50 participants at 1st and about 80 at 2nd one). 6000 visitors of KUTEL website. 150 attendees at final conference. Valorisation contact database 100/150 per project country. About 50 academic staff and 5 Public Authorities by Kazakh partners involved in the Preparation phase.

The proposed project is aiming to enhance interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity in ICT education at the higher educational institutions in Russia and Kazakhstan. Both involved partner countries have inherited their higher education systems from Soviet Union, where the key feature was fundamental education and deep focus on technical skills, but which rarely involved sufficient interdisciplinary training or development of soft skills. As currently both interdisciplinarity and entrepreneurial soft skills become an important factor for labour market, and thus partner country universities require guidance in its development. While contemporary ICT-tools and pedagogical approaches are being widely implemented for hard skills development, in the sector of soft skills partner country universities are falling behind their EU counterparts.The project is achieving the proposed goal by developing and implementing IT-entrepreneurial module in the curricula of IT-majors on bachelor, master and PhD levels. The developed module includes ICT competence hard skills module, entrepreneurial soft skills module and acceleration block that are included in student curricula. The project also aims to develop assessment algorithm for measuring of entrepreneurial soft skills.

GEOCLIC aims to modernize BA / MSc / PhD curricula in geospatial technologies in order to ensure environmental safety of coastal ecosystems using new technologies: GEONETCast; GIS Software - ILWIS and remote sensing and modeling technologies through updating existing curricula in the area and developing /testing accrediting new curricula according to the new achievements in the area; to test and accredit the curricula and to disseminate the results. GEOCLIC's consortium consists of 17 partners (plus 7 associate-partners) with the required expertise and skills. The outputs/results are: •Agreement and Guidelines on instructional strategy for curricula design •New curricula in geospatial technologies, including innovative new equipped laboratories GEOLAB and virtual rooms CVE •Updated current curricula in geospatial technologies including ECTS and the new developments •Bringing the HEIs of AZ, KZ and TM closer to labor market (new equipped Service Offices on spatiality technologies GEOCOF). The content and use of new educational technologies, compliant with the European modernization agenda for HEIs, will function as the envisaged impact.