According to the survey of World Economic Forum [tinyurl.com/jzlr5le], Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is the one of the top technological drivers of change for future of jobs, employment, skills and workforce strategy in the 4th Industrial Revolution. According to Forbes prediction, embedded smart sensors, remote monitoring systems, big data, data analytics, and machine learning will be considered as the top 5 engineering skills in 2020 [tinyurl.com/jajppcp]. In order to prepare the society for such an enormous diversity, modernising Higher Education (HE) towards integrating IIoT skills for engineers is an extreme requirement.The main goal of the IoTRAIN project is to achieve the modernization and internationalization of higher education in Iran and Iraq, taking into account the huge changes introduced by Internet technologies in society and business, and to design, develop and enact teaching, peer-production and continuous improvement processes. IoTRAIN is particularly designed to target the growing demand of professional IIoT skills by enhancing the IIoT-related trainings in Iranian and Iraqis HE institutions (HEI). In this regard, IoTRAIN covers a careful analysis of existing and future technological gaps in IIoT and provides required trainings towards improving competitiveness of future Iranian and Iraqis engineers. IoTRAIN delivers an IIoT competence model consisting of the state-of-the-art skills in IIoT at the European and international standard levels. The provided model adopts up-to-date training materials of the European partners of the project and provides necessary high-level training with the aim of improving competitiveness of future Iranian and Iraqi. Furthermore, IoTRAIN delivers a Digital Engineering competence model consisting of the state-of-the-art skills in digitalization for engineers and experts following European and international standards.

The overarching goal of INsPIRe is to support modernisation and internationalisation of the Governance system of HEIs in Iraq with a specific focus on planning and programming systems. Due to the recent crisis and political economic situation, the current higher education system requires a strong intervention to face the weakness of the existing governance system. The WP1- Update of needs analysis requires the realisation of a comprehensive literature review aimed at identifying the existing governance frameworks and the development of an update needs analysis in Iraq HE system. The WP2- Training and capacity building activities for internal staff in quality assurance and strategic planning aims at realising capacity building through: online training; 3-days training study visits at four European Universities; 3-days training field missions in Iraq; 10 ToT (one per Iraqi university). Once the training section will end, the partners are ready to start the WP3- Implementation of changes and best practices through action plans, where the trainees and their institutions will be involved in the development of action plans that should be implemented by each HEI. According to the relevant literature on higher education governance, internationalization and wide participation of stakeholders are trend topic that guarantee a better governance. Thus the WP4 provides a specific focus on the management and governance of international relation through the development of useful tools and techniques. The WP5 provides the set up of a formal consultative body within HEIs, in order to assure a better coordination between the systems of higher education, and private/public sector, also ensuring the involvement of other non-state actors. In term of impact at short term, improvement and strength of skills and knowledge on innovative governance practices and strategic planning topics will be ensured as well as on long term the development of an ongoing process of self- improvement.