DEREL TEMPUS JEP

Development of Environment and Resources Learning 511001-TEMPUS-1-2010-1-IT-TEMPUS-JPCR

(2010-3375-001-001) 15.10.2010- 14. 10.2013

Minutes of the DEREL Extraordinary Coordination and speed up meeting

21 May 2012

Venue: University of Firenze, School of Engineering, Via S. Marta, 3 Firenze

List of Participants

NAME INSTITUTION COUNTRY

Borri, Claudio University of Firenze, School of

Engineering Italy

Caporali, Enrica University of Firenze, School of

Engineering Italy

Ciulli, Andrea University of Firenze, Building Management and Contracts

Italy

Dumova-Jovanoska, Elena Ss. Cyril and Methodius University FYR Macedonia Falugiani, Carla University of Firenze Italy

Guberti, Elisa University of Firenze, School of

Engineering Italy

Hadjieva Zaharieva, Roumiana External Expert Bulgary

Hoxha, Perparim Polytechnic University of Tirana,

Dean of the Faculty of Geology and Mining

Albania

Mariotti, Caterina University of Firenze, Building Management and Contracts

Italy

Milovanovic, Dusan University of Novi Sad Republic of

Serbia

Pirrò, Federica University of Firenze, School of

Engineering Italy

Sahlmen, Joerg Ruhr University Bochum Germany Schaar, Heidi Vienna University for Technology Austria

Sinojmeri, Agim Polytechnic University of Tirana, Faculty of Geology and Mining

Albania

Tuneski, Atanasko Ss. Cyril and Methodius University FYR Macedonia

Vujic, Goran University of Novi Sad Republic of

Serbia

1. Opening Topics 1.1. Adoption of the agenda 1.2. Welcome and apologies for absence

E. Caporali officially opens the meeting, welcomes all participants, presents the agenda and apologies for absence from D. Angelides and I. Xenides.

1.3. Approval of the previous meeting minutes (Thessaloniki, 24-25.10.2011) E. Caporali recalls that the minutes of the previous DEREL meeting were circulated right after the meeting. She asks about possible comments on the text and finally the document is formally approved. It will be care of A. Tuneski to put the final approved version of the minutes on the project web site as soon as possible.

1.4 The DEREL of the project: status of the art A. Tuneski takes the floor and presents the actual situation of the DEREL project (see full presentation in Enclosure 1). He asks all the partners to pay particular attention to the definition of the DEREL curriculum. In particular the contact persons from each PC participating in the

project are invited to send (to Prof. Tuneski with a copy to derel@unifi.it) the latest version of the updated DEREL curriculum in order to be distributed during the next plenary meeting in Albania. The deadline for this action is 05.06.2012. C. Borri presents the EUR-ACE accreditation and quality assessment system and the main changes expected at the University of Firenze, School of Engineering for next academic year. In particular he informs that at the bachelor level the new course (building, civil and environmental engineering) will undergo the EUR-ACE accreditation at the end of 2012.

1.4.1. DEREL printing materials A. Tuneski informs that a general poster, booklet (including CD) and leaflet presenting the DEREL project as a whole are ready to be printed. The printing will be done next week and after that the materials will be available for all the partners at the occasion of the next plenary meeting in Albania (Vlore, 11.06.2012). Leaflets for the dissemination of the DEREL studies need to be prepared as well. The final version of them (including format and content) will be discussed and agreed in Albania.

1.4.2 DEREL academic and training visits The second quality control meeting is planned to be organized at RUB during the last week of November (week 48), tentatively on the 30th (Friday, full day devoted to the quality control meeting). Possibly the previous days of the week will be dedicated to academic and training visits. RUB will be asked about the feasibility to organize the meetings on these days. J. Sahlmen will consult Professor R. Höffer and the RUB staff about the real possibilities of organizing the meeting and will inform the DEREL HQ. The deadline for this action is 05.06.2012. It’s proposed to arrange a DEREL informative session in Thessaloniki at the occasion of the SEFI annual conference (23-26 September 2012). E. Caporali will be in contact with the local organizers in order to verify the feasibility of this action. She also reminds that a paper on the DEREL project has been already presented (and accepted).

C. Borri invites the participants (possibly one person per each PC within the DEREL project) to take part in the Academic Network EUGENE – European and Global Engineering Education-dissemination event that will take place in Florence on the 14th of September 2012.

2. DEREL equipment

2.1 DEREL equipment for the Universities in the FYR of Macedonia A. Tuneski takes the floor and explains in details the specification of the equipment elaborated by the PC. As far as the MK concerns, the 46 items are thought to be grouped in 5 or 6 lots according to the features of the equipment requested in order to facilitate the operations of the purchase. The same solution is adopted unanimously by the other partners: consequently every list of items within the PC institutions will be organized in smaller lots of homogenous materials which will have a value under 25.000 E. This will imply that the purchase could be done simply on the basis of three offers. In this way a tender procedure won’t be necessary and an Open Call can be planned instead country by country. The University of Florence will take charge of preparing a template letter for the request of offers in IT and EN. This action will be taken care of by Dr. Ciulli. The letter will be delivered to all partners and they will use it to send invitations to submit offers. The estimated time to answer to the invitation is fixed in 30 days. Each PC is invited to stack the items in lots by the 1st of June and to send the list to the University of Florence (derel@ing.unifi.it). While the request of offers is local, the answers will have to be addressed to the University of Firenze so that the purchase orders will be issued by the University of Firenze itself.

A Ciulli takes the floor and summarizes the agreed procedure for the purchase of the equipment, which can be itemized as follows:

- In case of big amounts such as is the case in the framework of the DEREL project normally a

public tender procedure is required: in fact under the Article 28 of the Legislative Decree 163-06 the EC requests a European Tender procedure when the amount exceeds the quantity of 200.000,00 Euros; however an Open Call is duly allowed in case the lots (each one below 25.000 Euros) are completely different and independent from each other from a technical point of view: in this respect it is recalled to all parties that the article 29 of the legislative decree 163-06 cites: “No work project or any proposed purchase aimed at obtaining a certain quantity of supplies or services can be fractionated in order to avoid the rules that would have been applied without any division”;

- The “Ufficio Contratti” (Office of Contracts) of the University of Firenze agrees to prepare the standard invitation letter if the conditions of declared effective autonomy, non uniformity and technical independence of the supplies (as mentioned above) are respected and if it is granted that with reference of the above mentioned issue the responsibility will entirely lies with the signatory of the letter;

- The letter will be sent to the partners in IT and EN (possibly a translation in the local language could be done, but this will be under the responsibility of the local Universities): it will include a detailed specification which will have to be quoted exactly also in the offer;

- With the only exception of Albania, all other partners will open the offers and operate the selection on the basis of the lower price. Place of delivery, testing and starting training, if necessary, must be specified in the request of offers; A. Ciulli suggests to adopt a more linear and univocal procedure letting all offers arrive to the University of Florence that will take charge of opening the offers, verifying the correctness of the shipment and verbalizing all procedure. The request for offers will be published also on the internal bulletin of the University of Firenze for evident transparency issues;

- The University of Firenze will check the offers (which have to be strictly connected with the technical specification) and prepare the award letters and the purchase order on the basis of the lower price.

- The cheaper offer must be chosen. Once the supplier will be identified the purchases order will be prepared;

- The purchase orders can be placed independently each from one other; - Once the delivery is ok, in each university a responsible person should clearly state the

arrival of the material, its regulation and full working. The purchase order must clearly indicate that the payment will occur within 30 days after the date of the invoice only if the declaration of conformity is also enclosed. A template for this document will be prepared by the University of Firenze.

3. DEREL Quality Check

3.1. DEREL Intermediate Report A. Tuneski shortly presents the main points of the Intermediate report, including main sections and items treated, submitted to the EACEA on the 15th of April 2012. Main weak points are stressed such as equipment and printing slowly progressing and no training visits at RUB performed so far. 3.2. Evaluation report by Prof. R. Zaharieva (DEREL external expert) R. Zaharieva presents her evaluation report on the project activities (see enclosure n. 2). In particular she encourages the project coordinator to enlarge the collaboration to non academic partners and collaborative partners who can help creating a Network. Moreover, a more active participation and contribution from all the partners is requested, as well as sending the claims of reimbursement within the requested deadlines (one month). For its part the administrative staff will take care of proceed with the reimbursements as soon as possible. She suggests to publish minutes of meetings for each event relevant to the project on the web site.

Moreover the web site should be more user friendly especially by adding a search button as well as to use “standard” icons or symbols as much as possible. She suggests to put efforts on the updating of the web site, also with pictures of the meetings, and to focus on new revised version of the questionnaires.

4. Next plenary meeting of DEREL

The next plenary meeting will take place in Vlore (AL) on the 11th of June 2012: it will be a one full day meeting (tentatively from 10 to 18) followed by field visits which will take place on the following day (12.06.2012). The agenda and official call will be prepared by the DEREL HQ in the next days and circulated within the DEREL project participants by the end of the month. The University of Florence takes care to send to the Albania colleagues the list of participants with the exact dates of arrival and departures in order to let them organize the transfers from/to Tirana airport in time.

5. Any other matter

C. Borri proposes to prepare a message wishing prompt recovery to Prof. Scmid on behalf of the whole DEREL project partners. All the presents welcome the idea and give mandate to Prof. Borri.

Minutes prepared by E. Guberti and F. Pirrò derel@unifi.it Firenze, 23.05.2012

Enclosure n. 1 Presentation by Professor A. Tuneski

DEREL TEMPUS 511001-2010DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND

RESOURCES ENGINEERING LEARNING

DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND

RESOURCES ENGINEERING LEARNING

DEREL

DEREL SPEED-UP MEETING , FLORENCE, MAY 2012

PROGRAMME: TEMPUS

SUB-PROGRAMME: JOINT PROJECTS

ACTION: CURRICULAR REFORM

Important questions:

1. Accreditation of the new DEREL curriculum?

2. DEREL equipment?

3. DEREL printing materials?

4. Slow dynamics of the spending of the budget?

5. Visits to RUB were not performed...

6. DEREL dissemination (informative sessions,

distribution of printing materials....)?

7. DEREL life-long learning seminars & workshops?

1. Accreditation of the new DEREL curriculum?

Macedonia: It is expected to get the accreditation before June 1st, 2012 and to announce the open call for new students in June 2012...

Serbia: New DEREL students in academic 2012/2013?

Albania: New DEREL students in academic 2012/2013?

2. DEREL equipment?

Specified equipment items have a price below 25000 EUR;

In accordance with the Guidelines for the Use of the TEMPUS grant, tendering procedure is not necessary for such equipment items;

Quotations from at least three suppliers must be obtained for these purchases. ONE INVOICE LOWER THAN 25000 EUR PER ONE SUPPLIER?

This option appears to be more convenient than acquiring thewhole equipment through tender procedure since it is faster, cheaper, the equipment will be delivered by the equipment producers directly the future maintenance of the equipment will be easier, as well as supplying with the spare parts and the eventual repairing of the equipment.

3. DEREL printing materials?

DEREL posters and booklets are ready to be printed....

They may be delivered to the participants at the meeting

in Tirana on June 11th and 12th, 2012;

Should we prepare leaflets for dissemination of the

DEREL studies?

Should we make some advertisement of the DEREL

studies in the newspapers?

4. Slow dynamics of the spending of the budget?

Acquirement of the DEREL equipment should be done as soon as possible;

In the Interim Report it was written that the equipment will be delivered not later than September 15th, 2012...

The equipment budget is 330918 EUR

The spending of this budget is necessary to get the second instalment of the TEMPUS grant (next 30%);

- Academic visit and training visit to RUB were not performed....

Let us organize DEREL quality control meeting in Bochum in the second half of October 2012..

DEREL dissemination (informative sessions, distribution of printing materials....)?

DEREL informative sessions in MK, RS and AL (activity 5.1).

They may be done at the end of June 2012, and at the end of year 2012, after the second DEREL quality control meeting.

Distribution of printing materials?

DEREL life-long learning seminars and worshops?

Six life-long learning seminars in six months period February 2013 – July 2013, in MK, RS, AL

Three workshops should be organized in 2013 (March, May, September), in MK, RS, AL.

Workshops in March and May 2013 may be joined to the seminars.

Workshop in September 2013 is supposed to be the final (closing) DEREL workshop.

• Distribution of a large number of brochures, leaflets and

booklets (50000 pieces in total) twice per year – each six

months

April 2011, October 2011, April 2012, October 2012,

April 2013, October 2013

Budget: 11550 €

• Production (both in paper and CD version) of the quality

control reports, annual DEREL Progress Reports and DEREL

network seminars.

May 2012, October 2013

Budget: 8500 €

Total budget for these activities: 20050 €

Publishing of the DEREL final report (DEREL book): 3090 €

7.1. Start 5 – End 36, duration: 32 months

Control and Monitoring of the DEREL project quality

• Internal assessment will include peer reviews performed by the DEREL

Management Board

• A questionnaire about the DEREL quality progress will be filled in by all

project participants, twice a year;

• External quality assessment will be provided through continuous

presentation of the DEREL activities and deliverables

(printing costs 7680 €)

Continuous publishing of the DEREL activities and deliverables in

public media (newspapers, environmental magazines, etc.).

• Inter-Tempus project coaching will be implemented (2400 €) .

• Quality control and monitoring results will be available in the Annual

DEREL progress reports (put on the DEREL web-site).

Total costs for this activity: 10080 €

Enclosure n. 2

TEMPUS Project No. 511001- TEMPUS-1-2010-1-IT-TEMPUS-JCSR

DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES ENGINEERING LEARNING

(DEREL)

EXTERNAL EXPERT REPORT Evaluated period: DECEMBER 2010 – APRIL 2012

Prepared by: ROUMIANA ZAHARIEVA

University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy – Sofia, Bulgaria

May 2012

1. Aim of the Report This report is a part of Quality Control System and Monitoring of the DEREL Project.

The report aims to analyse the activities, performed during the period December 2010 to April 2012 and their compliance with the TEMPUS JP Proposal and Workplan, to evaluate the outcomes of the Project of point of view of DEREL’s main objectives:

1. To develop new, up-to-date, postgraduate curricula in Environment and Resources Engineering at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, FYR of Macedonia, University of Novi Sad, Serbia and Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania, based on the European Credit Transfer System and in accordance with the Bologna Process, following the criteria and conditions for setting up a Joint Postgraduate Degree.

2. To develop and implement sustainable regional DEREL network aimed at: (i) offering lifelong learning seminars at the DEREL Partner Countries for environment and resources engineering education and training of interested stakeholders (i.e. public services, enterprises, NGO's); (ii) organize and work out workshops focused on strengthening the links in the knowledge triangle: environment education-innovation-research, with participation of postgraduate students, public services, enterprises and NGO's.

and, eventually, to give some recommendations for the further period.

A. Evaluation methodology Since this report is prepared after submitting the Intermediate Report on implementation of the project (IR) to EACEA, there will not be an overview of all performed activities, but rather a constructive analysis of the main activities described in IR. The evaluation is also based on the expert’s participation in the Start-up meeting in Novi Sad (December 2010) and in the Quality Control Meeting in Thessaloniki (October 2011), as well as on the Minutes of Meeting of Ohrid Workshop (April 2011), on the information communicated between Consortium's partners, as well as on the DEREC Web site information.

The structure of this analysis is inspired by the questions of the DEREL questionnaire (http://www.derel.ukim.edu.mk/sites/default/files/DEREL%20QUESTIONNAIRE.pdf)

B. Project's development assessment

3.1. Estimation of the level of actual fulfillment of the eight DEREL project outcomes

The realization of the first objective of the project, i.e. "To develop new, up-to-date, postgraduate curricula in Environment and Resources Engineering at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, FYR of Macedonia, University of Novi Sad, Serbia and Polytechnic University of Tirana, Albania", is going on substantially in accordance with the Work Plan: the Curriculum has been developed; most of academic visits and PC staff training and retraining at EU Universities have been completed; the elaboration of educational materials has started; the Elaborate for accreditation has been adopted in CMU. Although the accreditation process is little bit delayed at PTU and UNS, it seems it is still possible to be done on time (before the enrollment of students for the next scholar year 2012/2013) because similar post-graduate studies already exist at those two universities and the accreditation process is easier than in CMU). Although the List of Lifelong Courses has been elaborated at a later, than first planned stage (during the Workshop in Ohrid in April 2011), it does not hinder the achievement of the second objective, i.e. "To develop and implement sustainable regional DEREL network". The List was completed only in February 2012, probably as a result from discussions performed through some electronic communication and/or during some bilateral meetings. However, it seems that the List of lifelong

courses has been done by academic partners (looking at attendance lists of DEREL events) and a few of the non-academic partners. The involvement of all potentially interested stakeholders (i.e. public services, enterprises, NGO's) in the development of courses and adjustment of their content should be more than encouraged. The type of document, which is to be issued to participants in Lifelong learning programme, is still to be specified. 3.2. Time-delay in achievement of the project outcomes

In terms of time, one accumulated delay (approx. 5 months), compared to scheduled plan, is related to the acquirement of the DEREL equipment. The reasons for the delay have been presented in the IR and concern the huge number of items to be specified, the peculiarities of tendering procedures, etc. However, this delay should not be critical for the achievement of the project, because it is expected to have the equipment supplied on time, i.e. before the start of the new DEREL postgraduate studies (October 2012), as well as the start of the DEREL lifelong learning courses (February 2013). The other time-related issue is the signing of the Agreements for the definition of shared educational paths in study courses in the field of environment and resources and engineering and for the mutual recognition of the degree titles between the University of Florence and those of partner countries (only an Agreement with CMU exists thanks to former TEMPUS DEREC (CD_JEP-19028-2004). As stated by Macedonian, Serbian and Albanian representatives, the Joint Postgraduate Degree has been evaluated as one of the main achievements of the project and as one of the most attractive characteristics of the postgraduate programme. The Curriculum itself is much expired from Florence experience, in order to meet the requirements for the joint diplomas. 3.3. Project administration

Administrative coordination of the project can be assessed as satisfactory. It is recognized that the coordination of such big project with so many partners of 7 countries and different institutions requires a lot of efforts and professionalism. All the events were well organized in terms of preliminary communication of the agenda and other discussed materials, accommodation, work atmosphere.

As very useful can be evaluated the presentation "Administrative coordination of the DEREL project", done during the Ohrid Workshop by J. Valdiserri, as well as the development of Mobility Authorization Procedure.

However, because of various reasons (some of them objective, such as national holidays, completion of the fiscal year at University of Florence, but also subjective, such as a late reporting of people, but also of event's organizers), some costs reimbursements have been delayed. So, in the "Reimbursement Guidelines for TEMPUS DEREL project", additional item on reporting/claiming period can be added, for example reporting by host on occurred expenses not later than 2 weeks after the event and claiming by participants not later than one month after the event. Similar terms can be applied to other expenses as well in order to improve the project financing.

3.4. Project management

The Project Management is obviously satisfactory, since the development of project is going on as it has been initially planned, with minor modifications. However, the transparency of the project management can be slightly improved. For example, a couple of coordination and monitoring visits (mainly bilateral) have been performed at PC universities, which demonstrates a good collaboration between partners. However, no information (purpose - results) appears in the DEREL web site. Only the IR has given some information about, but mainly for the purposes of mobility costs reporting. Publication of brief Minutes of such meetings, as well as on Skype conferences, on the DEREL web-site will improve the transparency of the decision making.

3.5. DEREL Joint Postgraduate Curriculum

The DEREL Curriculum has been already specified after a large discussion among the academic DEREL partners. It seems that a good balance between the needs of the PC (lack of researchers and experts, institutional weakness, new technologies challenges, requirements related to the future association with the European Union) and the requirements of joint title degree with University of Florence, has been achieved. It could be recommended to amend the elective courses in order to match better the specific needs of each country and to give a bigger choice to students (at present the choice is 1 out of 2 courses). The title in English of some courses can be improved. For example, it is not clear whether the "Environmental Transport Processes" will cover the subjects, related to the management of the transport impact on the environment (pollution, resources, need of infrastructure, etc.), or it is related to processes of transport of matter in the environment (for example by air movements, flooding or landslides). 3.6. Project web-site

DEREL web-site is well structured, and gives representative information on the content, development and the purposes of the Project.

Some minor recommendations can be formulated:

1) For the time being, the DEREL web-site serves mainly the project partners. However, its attractiveness for the project end users should be increased, especially to contribute to the sustainable regional network creation.

2) In order to follow easily the development of the project, in the description of activities and their status (completed, ongoing, future) the planned schedule for execution can be compared with the real execution time.

3) In the Consortium description at http://www.derel.ukim.edu.mk/consortium to insert active links to the CENTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, FYR MACEDONIA and to the AGENCY OF ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTRY, ALBANIA, or at least to give a brief description of these two partners, as it done on the page http://www.derel.ukim.edu.mk/non-university-partners .

4) No information on the work of the DEREL Management bodies, especially of DEREL PC management board.

5) The pictograms design might be improved by using user friendly symbols (i.e. using for

completed activities is not quite logical, is commonly accepted symbol for settings and not for ongoing activities).

6) Minor spelling mistakes ( http://www.derel.ukim.edu.mk/non-university-partners ) or partially not translated texts to English http://www.derel.ukim.edu.mk/sites/default/files/DEREL%20curriculum%20final.pdf should be corrected.

The Academic visit to Florence in September 2011 is named workshop in the http://www.derel.ukim.edu.mk/derel-documents.

7) Galleries contain only three pictures from Ohrid workshop. It can be amended by pictures from the other events or partner's activities, related to the project.

8) Introducing of a search option would facilitate the work of end users with DEREL web-site.

3.7. Recommendations and challenges

1) Involvement of non-academic partners in the execution of projects activities. Except for the Centre for Climate Change, MK, there were not representatives of any of the other non-university partners so far. It is understood that the role of non-university partners has been specified mainly to WP4 "Development and Implementation of sustainable regional DEREL network, through participation on the lifelong learning seminars in the DEREL PC for environment and resources engineering education and training, as well as participation on the DEREL workshops focused on strengthening the links in the knowledge triangle: environmental education-innovation-research", but it should not be limited to. The lack of participation of experts of those non-academic partners in the discussions of Curriculum and Life-long learning courses makes impression that those partners are "sleeping", or passive - they will be only subject of education and training. I believe their expert potential can be mobilised for adjusting the needs of specific knowledge for each country to the provided courses within DEREL, as well as to establish a sound relationship between the education of future students and their professional realization. 2) Some additional work should be done to realize the second objective of DEREL project. The goal to use the DEREL network as a nucleus in environmental management of is opened for new interested stakeholders (universities, research institutes, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, enterprises and non-academic institutions, etc). The involvement of non-university partners in WP4 (participation in seminars and workshops) does not seem enough to realise this ambitious goal, because there are only a few from the three PC, and they are not uniform as structure, field of work, competencies, etc. - Table 1. This cannot be considered as a draw back, but as an opportunity to gather different point of view, competencies, experience and impact in the environmental management. However, I suggest contacting the same institutions (or similar ones, by field of work) in other two countries which are already Consortium members in one of the PC, i.e. to create "a mirror" national networks in the PC, with a different level to DEREL involvement of the different participants (project partners, collaborators, audience, etc.). Thus the communication within the network will be facilitated; the programmes of seminaries and workshops can be unified and the growth of the network will be insured. As mentioned above, it is important to include in the network enterprises and non-governmental organisations - Table 1. 3) The Survey of the Partner Countries educational and Labour Market needs is to be amended. Surveys of PC educational & Labour Market needs in PC serves for educational needs identification. In terms of educational needs, the studies performed in Macedonia within DEREL project confirm the conclusions from the DEREC project and justify an integral and interdisciplinary post-graduate programme in Environmental and Resource engineering: there is a need of well qualified specialists (engineering staff, researchers and experts) in planning and resources management and environmental engineering systems to deal with water and air pollution control, as well as wit soil erosion and waste removal. The situation in Albania and Serbia is similar, although some peculiarities can be outlined. Table 1. Suggested structure of non-academic partners in the regional environmental network.

However, in terms of labour market needs identification, all Surveys could be qualified as on overview of environmental policy, problems and trends, and thus only as an indirect survey of labour market needs. It is recommended to make an additional inquiry on the needs of specialists and experts in the environmental and resources management and engineering: in "green" enterprises (waste water treatment plants, landfills, recycling companies, conventional energy and renewable energy producing companies, etc.), in other enterprises such as construction, mining industry, agriculture, chemical and food industry, etc. , at regional level (municipalities, laboratories, research and controlling institutions) and at national level (ministries, agencies). Such amendment to surveys will help to adjust the Curriculum courses to the needs and expectations, as well as to adapt the lifelong programme to those needs. It should be mentioned that this recommendation is based only the Power Point Presentations of those surveys, which are available in the DEREL website. It is possible that the surveys contain the requested information. 4) The Questionnaire has not been filled in yet by partners (or at list it has not been reported), although it should have been done twice per year. It seems that ad-hoc questionnaires have not been distributed either. The recommendation is to do this procedure so soonest possible and to discuss the feed-back during the next Quality control meeting. Some changes to the Questionnaire can be done, for example: - Since in the Work plan there is not quantitative indicators and/or weighted contribution of each activity in the achievement of project goals, the request for estimation in percentage of the level of actual fulfilment of the eight DEREL project outcomes should be revised (Q1). - Since the Elaborate has been already prepared and the title has been specified Q7 is irrelevant. Instead, some suggestions to the Long-life learning courses content can be asked for. It is also recommended to prepare a modified Questionnaire to be addressed to the audience of informative sessions (i.e. students) and to potential end users (governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, enterprises and non-academic institutions), in order to assess the expectations for the master degree educational level. The feed back can be used for the purposes of both external evaluation and for strengthening of DEREL nucleolus role in the regional environmental network (the second project objective).

PC Macedonia Serbia Albania National level

authorities MINISTRY OF

ENVIRONMENT AND PHYSICAL

PLANNING

SERBIAN ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY

AGENCY OF ENVIRONMENT AND

FORESTRY NATIONAL AGENCY

OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Regional level authorities

? REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

AGENCY OF EASTERN SERBIA

?

Non-governmental organization

CENTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

? ?

Enterprise in an industry with significant

environmental impact

? COPPER SMELTING AND REFINING

PLANT BOR

?

"Green" enterprise ? ? ? Other ? ? ?

5) The List of lifelong courses looks well balanced, in case they will be offered as an educational programme. However, the programme can be structured according to subjects (and not according to responsible partners), in order to show better the logic. Each course covers a relevant subject. Only the course "Computational Fluid Dynamics in the Environmental Engineering" looks a little bit too theoretic (after all, the Lifelong educational programme is created for professionals who would like to improve there competencies in environmental management), but it cannot be assessed only based on the title. 6) In order to assure the sustainability of the project, the Lifelong programme should not be limited to workshops and seminaries only, performed within the project (where the participation will be most likely free of charge). Collaboration with PC University Centres for Open and Continuing Education (or similar structures that might exist) shall be established. The courses can be structured as separate modules (or one module can consist of several courses) and offered (against a payment) to a wider audience than that which is targeted for the workshops. It can be recommended to issue a kind of certificate (or a system of certificates) to participants. In case the Lifelong programme is recognised by the public sector, such certificates could be specified as prerequisite for getting a job, related to environmental management. The same, but to a limited extent, is applicable to the private sector, too.

4. Conclusions DEREL is a challenging and ambitious project, expected to have a significant positive impact on the environmental management of the three Balkan countries - Macedonia, Serbia and Albania and thus facilitating the process towards join the European Union.

The DEREL team has shown a strong wish, a satisfactory capacity and consistent efforts to realise the main objectives of the Project:

1. To develop new, up-to-date, postgraduate curricula in Environment and Resources Engineering, based on the ECTS and in accordance with the Bologna Process, following the criteria and conditions for setting up a Joint Postgraduate Degree.

2. To develop and implement sustainable regional DEREL network aimed at: (i) offering lifelong learning seminars and workshops to interested stakeholders in the partner countries.

The good collaboration among DEREL consortium academic members assures the high quality of the educational programmes and materials. The further involvement of end-users and interested stakeholders is a guarantee for the sustainability of the project.

The management and project activities execution so far have been done in a professional and considered way, with a great compliance with TEMPUS JP Proposal and DEREL Work Plan.

The given recommendations are aiming only to improve the development of the project and to enhance its impact in the partner countries.