On the 28th of June 2021, a staff from University of Halabja (UoH) including Dr. Mahabad Kamil Abdullah, UoH president, Dr. Dana Abdullah Tahir, UoH vice-president for Scientific Affairs, Dr. Barzan Hadi Hama Kareem, head of International Relations, Mr. Arieann Ali Hamid, head of directorate of Higher Education Affairs and Mr. Aram Qadir, head of Quality Assurance held a virtual meeting with the manager of APPRAIS project Ms. Silvia Marchionne from UNIMED – Mediterranean Universities Union.
At the beginning of the project, Dr. Mahabad showed her appreciation towards APPRAIS project staff regarding the scheduled activities which are conducted by the project.

After that, Ms. Silivia gave a speech in which she clarified the meeting which was a self-assessment bilateral session based on the activities regarding WP1 of the project. Besides, she shed some light on the aim of the scheduled meeting with each Kurdish partner of the project which is to conduct an updated needs analysis of the higher education system in Kurdistan able to identify gaps and priorities in governance, quality assurance practices and credits recognition for learning mobility that have to be addressed in other work packages of the project.
In addition, on one side, the staff discussed the needs, weaknesses and constraints of UoH and on the other side they showed the priorities and strengths of the University.

APPRAIS which stands for Governance, quality, accountability: a piloting Reform Process in Kurdistan Region of Iraq is a co-financing project of Erasmus+ UNIMID- KA102, Capacity Building in the Field of Higher Education Call 2020.
The aim of APPRAIS is to support modernization of the Governance system of HEIs in Kurdistan Region of Iraq, improve Quality Assurance to be fitted with the new system of Bologna process and to recognize the credits mobility. Besides, the project will last for three years (15/01/2021- 14/01/2024) which consisted of four European partners including Pisa University/ Italy, Oslo University/ Norway, Murcia University/ Spain and Evora University/ Portugal and Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of KRG and eight public universities including Salahaddin, Sulaimani, Duhok, Halabja, Duhok Polytechnic, Garmian, Zakho and Charmo universities