Work Packages

WP1 is targeted at the Capacity building on Policy and practices of Doctoral Education and will set out sound bases for the successive WPs. This target will firstly be achieved trough development of capacity building training package on EU approaches and policy of doctoral, regulatory framework by the EU partners: during the workshops the agenda on DE, Salzburg Pprinciples and recommendations, as well as EU best practices will be presented. The role of all EU partners is significant here, as they will be actively involved in the capacity building activities, will develop the training pachages based on the EU best practices and deliver the workshops.

The AM parntners will provide the Synopsys to EU partners on the national developments and challanges, which will also be utalized in the development of capacity building trainings and adapting to national peculiarities.

The workshop will take place in Porto, where 53 staff will be trained from AM HEIs, SRIs, MESA. The partners will start the procurement and purchase of the equipment for the 5 Doctoral Schools (training rooms/PHD student offices) to be established in frames of the project.

The WP will start with the Kick off meeting, where Management methodology and structure will be peresented, the GB and Project Management team will be formed and QA mechanismsm will be presented by WP5 leader.

Purchased equipment is inventoried at HEIs/SRIs and available for the use of staff and doctoral students

The second WP is aimed at developing policy and legal framework for new doctoral education. Two major national documents will be developed throughout M6Y1-M11Y1, the (i) National Policy for Development of Doctoral Education in Armenia (NPD), (ii) National Framework for Doctoral Studies and Award of National Diploma of Doctor (NFDS). The developed core national documents will be reviewed by the consortium members and the external expert during the workshop in EU partner institution (Lyon) in M12Y1. Based on the feedback received during the workshop, the national regulatory framework will be revised and be available for public consultations in Armenia (though e-draft online platform and HEIs/SRIs institutional workshops). The public consultations will be targeted to various external stakeholders, including national authorities, HEIs/SRIs outside of the project consortium, education experts, scientific community, industry representatives, as well as NGOs and associations working with disadvantaged groups.

Based on the provided feedback, the documents will be revised and presented to the MESA for confirming and piloting. The first year will be devoted to the national policy and regulation development and will be concluded with ratification for pilot.

The WP3 project is aimed at development or revision of institutional policies, regulations and procedures in line with the redesigned legal framework. The organizational frameworks to support doctoral education and ensure open and inclusive research environments, transparent rules and procedures, as well as support for the professional development of both supervisors and doctoral candidates will be designed/revised. In particular, the Online Institutional Handbook for Doctoral Education will be developed and adapted by each participating HEI and SRI from Armenia. The Handbook will outline the entry requirements, clear policies and procedures, guidelines on admission, course duration, graduation, organization of teaching, research, supervision and defense, as well as cooperation with the industry, joint and double degree, mobility arrangements, evaluation, preparation of doctoral theses, roles and responsibilities, reporting, examination, assessment etc. The ratification of the institutional regulations and the availability of the Online Institutional HANDBOOK for Doctoral Education in project web site and in the web sites of participating institutions is considered as the major outcome and indicator of progress.

The pilot implementation of the developed national and institutional regulatory framework will be launched from the M6Y2 (the middle of the project): each institution will be working on one Doctoral school establishment and operationalization (with assigned AM and EU partners). To reduce the uncertainty and ensure project sustainability, the project team has agreed on the establishment of DS in advance with the consortium members and clarified the directions. The division was done based on the previous experience, available educational content (to be revised) and human resources (scientific and academic), as well as infrastructure.

The established DS armed with institutional procedures will launch the promotion and admit the 1st student cohort in M5Y3.

The WP will be concluded with the exchange on results of pilot implementation of the developed policy, legal and organizational framework of DE in Vilnius (M6Y3). Based on the feedback collected the national regulative framework and the institutional Handbook with procedures will be updated and finalized (M7Y3, M8Y3) and presented as Major delivarables. Pilot reports of newly established 5 Doctoral Schools will also serve as the major delivarable of the WP.

Quality control will be integral part of the project to ensure that objectives are met in the most effective way. At the beginning of the project Quality Control Plan with specific results to be developed. The quality control strategy comprises:

• Day-to-Day Internal Evaluation of the project by the WP leader and co-leader.
• External evaluation of the entire project will be conducted by external expert selected based on the international call. The external expert will support in Quality assurance (WP 5) of the project, in particular the expert shall: (1) Provide 4 assessment documents and improvement recommendations for (i) capacity building training package structure and methodology, (ii) the quality of national and institutional regulatory documents (structure and major provisions), (iii) the project intermediary report and (iv) the project final report.  (2) Provide 3 Assessment documents for the project major meetings and events, including (i) capacity building training in Porto (M6Y1), (ii) public consultation event in Yerevan (M12Y1), (iii) exchange on results of pilot implementation of the developed policy, legal and organizational framework of DE in Vilnius (M6Y3).
• The materials (National and institutional) produced by the partners (WP2, WP3) will also be evaluated by the GB, which is a strategic body and is responsible for the overall quality of the project. Senior representatives of PCs and EU partners including representatives from MESA will be the main strategic body for quality control & monitoring and it will monitor and approve the quality of the planned project results against established qualitative & quantitative indicators of progress (LFM).
• WP5 leader and the co-leader will periodically produce reports and recommendations in correspondence with the Project Work and QC plan. The WP 5 leader is an EU partner (VU), which will ensure objective external ongoing evaluation of this national project.

Peer reviews and inter-project coaching with Erasmus plus projects on internationalisation will become a part of the QC plan.

ARMDOCT project will pay great attention to dissemination strategy which will be implemented across the whole duration of the project at institutional, national and international levels, starting early in project implementation. A dedicated WP6 will implement all necessary tools and processes for an efficient management of the dissemination activities.

The project foresees multiple awareness raising actions both internally (at the level of the involved institutions) & externally (national, international level).

The project partners are encouraged to use any opportunity to raise awareness about the project using its own contacts, channels of dissemination (i.e. through membership in international networks/organizations & professional organizations, during organization or participation in “third party” conferences/meetings/events, through press-releases in the media, academic journals, institutional newsletters). Considering the partner institutions are the leading universities in AM and accumulate national academic community it will ensure that the impact of the project goes beyond the institutions directly involved and will access other HEIs.

Dissemination will be performed through various tools: electronic means (project homepage, online newsletters, download area for project outputs); events on different levels (internal/institutional information events; project public events and public consaltations: final conferenceand press conference in Armenia; re-training events and study visits), ongoing public consaltation on the natinal e-draft.am platform, which is a unique tool to engage the external stakholders in the development of national documents.

More specific dissemination activities are covered by development & implementation of extensive project marketing materials & awareness raising strategy; development of the Project book. WP2, WP3, WP4 in its core activity and planned public events in Yerevan are powerful tools of dissemination.

Actions supporting project results exploitation and sustainability are very targeted. They include project results and the national and institutional regulatory documents ratified by national or institutional authorities. The major outcome which will ensure the further replication of the experience and dessimination will be the piloted Doctoral Schools.

Development & signing of collaboration agreements between partner universities to ensure the maintenance of the partnerships created within the project, provide a basis for continuity of the collaborations/exchanges initiated within the project & support development of international research cooperation.

The WP aim is to ensure smooth strategic & operational project implementation. Strategic supervision of project implementation & related decisions will be taken by Governing Board composed of senior representatives of the AM HEIs and SRIs & 1 representative from each EU HEI and 1 representative of MESA. The GB will be chaired by EIU. GB will be responsible for development of project policy, strategic decision-making on project implementation, mid-term reviews & adoption of recommendations and evaluations of the within WP5 and Project external expert, progressive planning & potential adjustments. Decisions will be taken by simple majority. In case of disagreement the coordinator will propose a democratic solution, seeking advice of EACEA & consulting NEOs when necessary. At the level of operational project management each partner will appoint a project officer for the Project Management Team (PMT). The coordinator is responsible for the administrative management of the project incl. coordination of reporting, budget implementation & communication with the EACEA. The partners will submit regularly reports on activities implementation to the coordinator.

For cost-efficiency reasons the Kick-off and Coordinating meetings will coincide with other project activities (conferences, study visits, training sessions, methodological and progress workshops). Project management issues will be also discussed on every occasion of meetings under the project core activities.