The TIGRIS Project will aim to work on three different levels in order to support the modernisation, accessibility, and internationalisation of higher education in Kurdistan. At an institutional level, the project will capitalise upon internationalisation as a process with the potential to further develop Kurdish HEIs. In this way, the project will seek to contribute to the modernisation of the partner universities involved within the Kurdistan region by strengthening management structures and services for international relations, and building advanced strategic policies related to the internationalisation of education, research, mobility and student services which will bring the Kurdish partner HEIS more in line with the EHEA.

At national level, the project supports the MHESR’s objective to modernise its Higher Education system and to align it more concretely with European models of practice and the Bologna process. This includes introducing a flexible curriculum design, shifting from a teacher-centred to a student-centred approach, and developing Bachelor and Master programmes that both prepare students for the labour market and lay the foundations for the recognition of studies conducted abroad.

At an international level, it is hoped that aliging the Kurdish Higher Education system with the EHEA, and developing the participating universities such that they are able to devise and implement internationalisation strategies and modernise the services on offer as well as their capacity and capabilites to promote international relations, will both facilitate further academic international cooperation with the Kurdistan region and similarly position Kurdish HEIs more successfully in regional and global rankings. Having attained international standards of education, or at the very least comparable to those found in Europe, it is expected that participation in the project will enable the Kurdish HEIs to increase their visibility and attractiveness within the EHEA, and to increase their academic and scientific cooperation with HEIs and research institutes both within Europe and worldwide.