The overall goal of this project is to improve higher education provision in Kosovo and Albania, by building institutional capacity for international relations whereby establishing or making fully functional respective offices (including capacity for project cycle management) in all nine Kosovo and five Albanian consortium members. This project will build institutional capacity for the internationalization of HE in Kosovo and Albania, by improving capacity for project development and management through international expertise made available by European HEIs partnering in this project and exchange of good practice between the consortium members. This will make way for local higher education institutions to engage confidently in various academic and research cooperation initiatives in the region, in Europe and wider.The aim of the project is establish and develop fourteen fully functional offices of international cooperation that will also include the function of project cycle management. Currently, none of the new public universities in Kosovo and Albania has the capacity to fully run an International Cooperation Office, at a time when over 50% of students in European Higher Education institutions are studying or participating in one or another form of international studies and when a significant part of university life takes place in the form of various exchanges and mobilities. This makes it of paramount importance to build respective capacity for all members. This will ultimately contribute substantially to the quality of provision and will enrich university life and experiences of the student population in Kosovo and Albania. Therefore, having in mind the possibility of Erasmus + project to support this idea, we initiated the work as a consortium on developing this idea. The project will have very high importance in addressing increasing isolation, lack of quality international cooperation and lack of project initiatives from Kosovo and Albania universities.

Universities in Kosovo face similar challenges in terms of research activity. They all face low capacity to undertake quality scientific research, as well as they lack the institutional structures and certain policies to support research activity on a constant basis. Project expected results:- An assessment report published in outlining research situation in Kosovo.- Seven (7) research offices will be established, one per each university partner (except UP which already established it). - Respective universities will nominate at least one research coordinator per each research office.- Seven (7) strategic plans developed, one per each university (except UP who has already established it).- Establishment of six (6) scientific journals, one per a research priority in Kosovo.- Establishment of six (6) interinstitutional Scientific Committees, one per each scientific journal.- Establishment and update of a register of reviewers (international reviewers, also local reviewers with established international scientific reputation).- Establishing an inter-institutional Organizational Committee for the Annual Scientific Conference;- Organization of at least one conference during project life in six scientific sessions, with participation of around 200 researchers, from which 100 who present research work;- Minimum 60 papers fulfilling standards selected for publication into the scientific journals.- Policy/regulation on research ethics and integrity adapted in each beneficiary university (eight policies/regulations).- At least eight (8) Research Ethics Committees established and made functional, one per each beneficiary institution (respective universities may establish such committees at faculty levels).- An online open access database developed and launched;- Around 100 researchers, minimum 10 researchers per beneficiary partner will be trained on preparation research articles by meeting criteria of internationally indexed journals.

The digital age in which we are living has witnessed very rapid and diverse developments in the field of ICT. As a result of this transformation imposed by the development of technology, many fields, professions, functions, jobs and tasks change and are modified many day by day, some of them even disappear or are completely replaced by digital technology. Immune to this development and transformation is not even the field of education (including teacher education), as the most important field of any society.In order not to lag behind the developed world, Kosovo and Albania (as a country in transition, not associated with the programme) must be prepared for the integration and most effective and efficient use of technology and digitalization in its education system, in order to modernise and improve the quality of this system. Analysing the situation from a cause-consequences perspective, it is evident that in Kosovo and Albania, pupils start to learn IT subject only after the sixth grade. In both countries, the ICT teachers at primary and middle school levels have in most cases a professional degree other than in ICT and are nevertheless involved in the ICT course instruction. The lack of programs tackling issues related to ICT in education is problematic and such a situation necessitates we act urgently and address immediate needs towards capacitating future teachers of pre-university level with knowledge, skills and values related to digital transformation in education. This could lead us in creation of a Teacher Educators ICT competence profile, crash course program for existing teachers to match these profiles, modification of ICT learning path for pupils in pre-university curriculum and creation of non-existing Bachelor Program and modernisation of existing teacher education programs with respect to ICT competences.

A Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is a framework to share and re-use spatial data amongst public authorities, private sector and citizens. SDI are based on a series of agreements on technology standards, institutional settings and policies to unlock geospatial resources for a wide range of applications: e.g. environmental monitoring, transportation planning, health care, urban planning, etc. Since they are based on complex and permanently evolving technologies, and require innovative organisational, legal and institutional settings, the academic education related to SDI is challenging. No single university can provide education covering the complete geospatial field, so joint efforts are necessary. Especially since many of the societal challenges are cross-border and cross-policy phenomena. BESTSDI project is based on the results of the EU IPA2010 project “INSPIRATION – Spatial Data Infrastructure in the Western Balkans” (2012-2013) and the project “Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the region of Western Balkan” (IMPULS), being under execution. The BESTSDI project refines and extends these developments in three ways:1) A successful SDI requires an active participation by all national and local governments within a country, its private sector and citizens. This active participation is impossible without appropriate SDI knowledge and skills. Thus, education on SDI must be properly introduced in higher education study programs for future professionals and life-long learning courses for present professionals. 2) An SDI comes to life, if published geospatial data is widely being (re-)used. BESTSDI covers both spatial data provision as well as its (re-)usage. Data (re-)usage scenarios cover requirements arising in the regional priority domains agriculture, forestry and fisheries. 3) All BESTSDI partner countries are either candidate or potential candidate countries of joining the European Union and have the obligation to implement EU Directives and policies.The BESTSDI project has raise knowledge level and awareness on SDI in higher education institutions in Western Balkans region developing SDI curriculum which has been implemented in teaching at all 15 partner institutions. It has provided students with new knowledge and skills to emerging labour market needed to implement EU Directives and policies on national levels. Moreover, it has attuned curricula to equip the students with transversal skills, such as entrepreneurship and general digital skills, improving their ability to work with other people. Through the project 15 SDI labs have been established at the partner universities supporting modern education methods and approaches enabling more than 2.500 student to attend new or modernized courses with SDI content in third year of project lifetime. The BESTDI project has also supported development of methodology and business models for introduction of delivery of the Life-long courses for professionals at the partner universities what has been implemented in third year of project lifetime.The BESTSDI project has also supported project partners to take proactive role u development of national SDI's in their countries. For this purpose for the first time project partners (academic institutions) delivered for the first time the annual national SDI reports promoting importance of SDI education and stakeholder cooperation. This resulted for partner countries universities in cooperation with several other projects, agreements with the national authorities, new conferences, strengthening regional cooperation and internationalization of universities.

Despite ever accelerating workplace changes, including rapidly expanding technological access and fast improving information and communication systems, the education system in Kosovo is not fully developed to provide a high quality research-based education in Information and Communication Technology . Coping simultaneously with varied national priorities, Kosovo – a small country with 2 million inhabitants and a national budget of only 2.3 billion – lacks the needed investments to transform the education system quality. A funded ICT doctoral program would address today's workforce priorities and requirements. The design and delivery of a national PhD program in ICT is crucial for Kosovo in order to ensure competitive readiness within the regional education systems and national economies of the West Balkans - and beyond. The Partner Country’s specific objectives are to:1: Establish a national research school in ICT 2: Establish a national curricula for PhD studies in ICT with key elements of learning outcomes, goals and skills 3: Increase the knowledge, skills and abilities of Kosovo university staff and faculty4: Facilitate the accreditation process to appropriate national bodies5: Implement the national PhD program and register the first generation of graduate studentsThe ICT sector in Kosovo has created around 6,500 jobs in the past decade and, according to economic projections, another 10,000 new jobs will be created by 2025. The project aims to create long term effects, by generating high quality instructional cadres for the education system in Kosovo, who will disseminate their knowledge to the next generation of ICT students, preparing them for the growth of the ICT industry. Specific expected effects will be:1: An academically rigorous research education in ICT 2: Increased national quality assurance policy for research pedagogy and education in ICT 3: Increased mobility of PhD students and faculty from Kosovo with Programme Country counterparts