The RISE project partners gathered in Sulaymanya, Kurdistan region of Iraq for a two-day Consultative Workshop that aligned institutional strategies into a common, synergic roadmap to strengthen internationalisation and career development with the aim to boost graduates and students’ employability across Kurdistan’s higher education system.
Hosted by Sulaimani Polytechnic University (SPU), the workshop represented a key milestone of the RISE project and in particular under the framework of the Work Package 2 (WP2): Definition of Roadmaps. The workshop was anticipated by an online event held on June 18-19, 2025, useful to guide universities in brainstorming and sharing ideas on how to strengthen career services, expand global partnerships, and prepare students for an increasingly interconnected world, through the presentation of their institutional roadmaps.
Dr. Sarhang Sarwat Hama, Vice-President at SPU welcomed participants during the first day of the Consultative Workshop by highlighting the value of international collaboration for institutional development. Silvia Marchionne, Senior Project Manager at UNIMED and RISE Project Coordinator, reminded the audience about the RISE’s strategic role in capacity building and encouraged active, cross-institutional engagement throughout the workshop.
Silvia Marchionne, together with Martina Zipoli, Senior Project Manager at UNIMED, introduced the agenda of the two-day event with its objectives: shifting from the institutional roadmaps to the synergic roadmap at systemic level.
Theory into practice: the finalisation of the roadmaps
Dr. Nazar Ameen Mohammed (University of Duhok) and Dr. Awder Ahmed (SPU), leaders of WP2, traced the path of the previous six months from university-level focus groups to institutional validation meetings, explaining how insights have shaped each university’s roadmap. The session set the goal for the two-day workshop: to compare the two thematic roadmaps—internationalisation and employability—identify overlaps, and consolidate them into a single Synergy Roadmap.
An important roundtable—“Redefining the role of Higher Education Institutions in advancing social responsibility in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Navigating global challenges and opportunities”—brought together representatives from business and civil society alongside SPU students and alumni, including Diar Barzinji (IQ), Karwan Mahmood Ahmad (Penjwen Company), Marzia Jamal Hussein (Green Dream Organization), Mohammed Kawa Rasul (SPU graduate, now at Hong Kong University), and students Kozhin Faraj from the Faculty of Informatics and Sham Hassan Hussein from the Technical College of Engineer City Planning Engineering.
The roundtable key message focused around the need to involve more students and alumni in the activity of the International Relations Offices (IROs) and Career Development Centers (CDCs), by reinforcing the social responsibility role of the universities in policy and community development. Throughout the workshop, structured working groups examined four pillars—Objectives, Actions, Stakeholders, and Impact—to translate institutional ambitions into coordinated implementation steps.
The closing session showed shared priorities and complementarities, laying the groundwork for a coherent, joint Synergy Roadmap that partners will carry forward.
Looking forward: from the roadmap definition to the capacity building
Grounded in the institutional roadmaps and the synergic approach between internationalisation and career development, the next steps include the kick off of the WP3 Capacity Building activity, led by University of Murcia in collaboration with the University of International Studies of Rome – UNINT, with the organisation of an online training (starting in October 7th running until November 12th) – the RISE #MasterClass – followed by an on-site training week in Murcia, Spain in mid-November and another training week at UNINT in Rome in mid-January 2026. The participants, selected from the IROs and CDCs of the respective Kurdish partner universities, will delve into the topic of internationalisation and employability.
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