RISE MasterClass
Bridging Skills and Global Opportunities:
Enhancing Employability and Internationalisation
in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
The capacity building action of RISE includes, besides two in-presence training activities, an Online Course called RISE MasterClass: “Bridging Skills and Global Opportunities: Enhancing Employability and Internationalisation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq”, as part of the process of empowering Kurdish Higher Education Institutions by enhancing skills and competences of university staff, by enlarging the competencies of key university offices and providing additional opportunities to students and graduates.
The course is composed of SIX MODULES, which explore different aspects related to internationalisation, career development and employability in general, through a series of synchronous webinars and a repository of complementary materials (readings, articles, PPT presentations, etc).
All the European partners, under the overall guidance of the WP3 coordinator, University of Murcia, and the co-leader, International University of Rome – UNINT, in collaboration with UNIMED, contribute to the online course by sharing their own experience, good practices, and knowledge, providing an overall view about internationalisation and career development aspects and how they are implemented in their HEIs.
After the piloting phase involving the Kurdish partner universities, the course is now openly accessible to learners in different formats and platforms. The RISE MasterClass enhances and multiplies the training effect of the project, it will be used as a teaching tool for the local trainings of academic and administrative staff at Kurdish Partner universities, and it is a training resource for other staff members at Kurdish HEIs not part of the Consortium.
The RISE MasterClass materials are available in English.
Target Audience
The RISE MasterClass is conceived to be attended by academic and administrative staff and students from each Kurdish partner university, among the following profiles:
- CDC director
- staff members from the CDC office
- IRO director
- staff members from the IRO office
- Vice-President for Scientific Affairs
- Vice-President for Students Affairs
- Students
- Deans or academic staff with previous experience with international collaborations and/or internship programs and/or job fairs
Teaching method and course delivery
Each module has been designed with a blended methodology, with synchronous sessions and resources for self-learning. The synchronous sessions were delivered over the course of 6 weeks, starting from October 7 until November 12, 2025.
The online training was hosted in the online training platform of UNIMED available here: https://learn.uni-med.net/
The RISE MasterClass was delivered in subsequent steps. For details on the course delivery please learn more HERE. The online course is planned with the following activities:
- Synchronous lessons: A cycle of webinars (once a week)
- Complementary materials (activities, reading, PowerPoint presentations, video, link to web pages, etc.)
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- Analyse and evaluate key opportunities for international mobility and cooperation, recognising their impact on students’ and graduates’ educational and professional pathways.
- Effectively manage mobility processes (both incoming and outgoing), applying tools and methodologies to support administrative, academic, and intercultural aspects.
- Design and implement career development services that enhance graduates’ employability, in line with labour market needs and international career perspectives.
- Identify and develop future-oriented skills (soft skills, digital skills, intercultural skills) to reduce the gap between higher education and the labour market.
- Promote internationalisation at home, creating inclusive and intercultural learning environments also for students not engaged in physical mobility.
- Actively involve staff and students in institutional processes related to internationalisation and career development, enhancing their contribution to the quality and sustainability of adopted strategies.
- Critically assess the impact of internationalisation and career development policies and practices on graduate employability and on the institution’s reputation.
- Fully implement and adopt the RISE Synergic approach.
How to use the course
The RISE MasterClass is designed to provide training modules on selected topics related to the implementation of a synergic approach between Career Development and Internationalisation in the Kurdish universities, providing the competences and knowledge to facilitate a synergic approach between these two key institutional dimensions, with the overall purpose of supporting the modernization of higher education and the relevance of HEIs in the region. The course can contribute to defining a knowledge-base for the definition of innovative strategies for institutional development.
The RISE MasterClass is made available as an entire course, as well as each module as a standalone unit of content, and is made openly accessible through the RISE project website and the UNIMED learning platform, so that any learner can use content according to his/her own needs and learning rhythm.
The course is designed as a learning journey, where trainees can navigate through 6 modules and the many materials available (videos, readings and examples). The open version of the RISE course is meant for self-directed learning. Learners are encouraged to take the full course for completeness, and make the best use of the learning resources available to them, to replicate the learning approach of the project.
Modules shall be followed in the provided order. For each module, we encourage learners to start by consulting the preliminary provided resources, then watching the lecture recorded, and finally consulting the additional resources for completeness.