The aim of the project is to support the development, modernization and international visibility and excellence of higher education, namely education by research at the PhD level in Europe while helping also partner countries to develop new Ph.D. programs and consolidate existing ones in the field of Computing, and more specifically in the area of Software Engineering.

The project objectives and innovative aspects are:

1. PhD programs and profiles: Help the partner countries to develop and improve their PhD education and research while establishing PhD program profiles in the software engineering knowledge areas (SWEBOK). This project is built to support partners in sharing their own expertise courses and labs while helping each one to improve its weaknesses in areas that some others partners have.
2. PhD student training: Train the next generation of highly qualified academic researchers and educators in different research areas of software engineering. The wide range of PhD students that will be involved in the project will not only acquire deep understanding of research methods. They be skilled in writing, presenting and interacting with the international research community via projects and conferences. By visiting labs and taking courses at different locations, Ph.D students will have a unique opportunity to discover a wider range of research niches in software engineering than see in their own university. The students will have an opportunity to network themselves and to participate in different ongoing research projects at the different partners’ locations.
3. Academic research and professors: Give the opportunity to all participating professors and their research groups and Centre to know each other and to collaborate on joint research projects, courses, and strategic partnerships including joint research infrastructure, publication and PhD supervisions. Professors accompanying or providing teaching in the different locations will be able to be in touch with potential Ph.D. candidate and contribute to develop co-supervision with local colleagues.
4. Target countries and institutions: Support target countries in developing their capacity in software engineering education at the PhD level as well as fundamental research. Both for Russia and Jordan, this project will help these countries to build their own Ph.D. programs in software engineering while discussing with EU partners possibilities for joint doctoral programs. 
5. European universities and countries: Help European partner universities to develop their capacity to build a sustainable collaboration with partners with different research traditions and cultural backgrounds in international and multi-disciplinary environment.

Outcomes:

The key results of the project for Jordan include:

• the establishment of the first PhD program in Software Engineering in Jordan
• the development of the roadmap needed to establish the second PhD program there in five years
• training of current and future professors in Software Engineering knowledge areas and related disciplines· establishment of contacts with software engineering professors and research laboratories
• co-supervision of PhD students with professors from the partner universities
• collaborative research with partner universities and co-authored research publications
• organize industry panels to gain better understanding of the industry needs for software engineering PhD education