Among the main achievements of APPRAIS project, Kurdish universities were able to internally work on their priorities and goals and to elaborate their own strategy on Bologna Process implementation, based on the needs assessment conducted in the early stages of the project, and thus, to define an institutional roadmap to follow for a better adoption of the Bologna Process principles.

The roadmap is linked to the institutional strategic plans that Kurdish universities are required to develop after the capacity building action of APPRAIS, and presents the process required for the implementation of Bologna Process at institutional level, namely the actions to be developed by each university, the timeframe needed, the strategic priorities, the expected results and the potential impact, and finally the teams and/or departments in charge for the implementation of the university reforming process.

In order for the Kurdish HEIs to define their own roadmap, an investigation has been conducted by Charmo University in February 2022, through the defintion of targeted surveys addressed to teachers and students of Kurdish universities. The research aimed to inquiry about the state of the art of the implementation of Bologna Process in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. This work served to better inform and support the process of definition of the roadmap by the Kurdish colleagues, by creating a knowledge base and by knowing the current state of the implementation of the Bologna Process through the perceptions and experience of teachers and students in each of the 8 partner public universities.

The result of this investigation is the first of its kind and for the first time shed light on the outcomes, progressing, challenges, gaps and goals of the Kurdish universities engaged in the implementation of the reform towards the Bologna Process in the past 4-years.

You can read the Report on the Bologna Process implementation at Kurdish universities HERE.

In this context, to achieve a common roadmap template as a guideline and a reference for the Kurdish partners, a consultative workshop has been organised in Pisa on 15th March 2022 where Kurdish HEIs had the occasion to reflect and work on the common objectives to be reached to implement the Bologna Process. The consultation workshop was the occasion for European Partners to share their experiences with the Bologna Process implementation in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Norway, and to answer to the doubts of Kurdish HEIs regarding their implementation process. European universities shared good practices, lessons learnt, obstacles and solutions, to provide guidance in their process of Bologna process implementation. Then, Kurdish representatives discussed also the high-level objectives for the universities as guiding principles for the roadmap.

The consultative workshop in Pisa was followed by another workshop organised during the Training week in Sulaimani, specifically on June 16^th 2022. The template developed for the roadmap was presented by the collegues of the University of Evora, and Kurdish universities had the opportunity to work among peers to start the design of their own roadmap. They started a reflection on the objectives to be reached for a smooth implementation of a better university governance system and the adoption of some of the Bologna Process principles. They worked in small working groups, each entitled to discuss one objective of the roadmap and define a pattern including why, who and how. Each group defined activities, resources and timing for the achievement of the set goal through the roadmap, in coherence with the national strategy on higher education and the reform for Bologna Process implementation.

This consultative approach led the Kurdish universities to finally define their own roadmaps, serving as basis for the development of institutional action plans, as a further step forward. The University of Evora, in its role of coordinator of the task, provided technical assistance and feedback to the Kurdish colleagues to support them in the process of design of the institutional roadmaps.

To know more on the institutional roadmaps developed by the 8 Kurdish partner universities, you can consul the roadmaps here.