On 17th June 2020, partners from the Kurdistan Region held their annual regional project management meeting. This year’s meeting was hosted by the University of Halabja. As part of the TIGRIS project’s mitigation strategy in regard to the Covid-19 pandemic, partners adapted to the new circumstances conducting the meeting virtually.
During the meeting, Kurdish partners finalised the contractual provision for the Network of Kurdish Internationalisation Practitioners, to be called “NKIP9+”, to be formed by the Kurdish HEIs partners of TIGRIS together with the KRG Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
The network will play a key role in the future internationalisation of higher education in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and will serve as a platform for deliberation, consultation, pooling of resources for training, sharing of best practices and the development of new initiatives thereby contributing to the mobilisation, professionalisation and development of actors and institutions involved in the internationalisation of higher education in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
In this, the Network will host meetings, workshops, conferences and conduct other activities to facilitate and promote the internationalisation of higher education in the Kurdistan Region including joint promotion activities abroad aiming at raising the international visibility of Kurdish higher education and its institutions.
Furthermore, during the meeting partners discussed and outlined the development of the Management Information Systemand Database for Internationalisation of Higher Education to be developed in order to increase partners’ capacities to administer and strategically manage the future internationalisation of HEIs in the Kurdistan Region.
Both the Network and the Management Information System are identified as key for assuring the long-term impact of the TIGRIS project.