The University of Duhok (UoD) (www.uod.ac), one of the most important governmental academic institutions in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, is the project leader. Currently the university has nineteen colleges, seventeen research, training, consulting and service centres with a population currently standing at 23,000 students. UoD, affiliated to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Erbil, KRG, was founded in 1992 and offers Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees along with professional postgraduate Higher diploma after the Bachelor Degree. The University of Duhok is a member of the IAU, EAIE, AARU, and UNIMED. The University has collaborative partnerships and projects with a large number of universities in Europe, the US, SE Asia and the Middle East. Furthermore, UoD has been an active member in the Erasmus Mundus Program since 2007 and has held two annual meetings of the Erasmus Mundus- SALAM 1 kick- off meeting in 2011 and SALAM 2 selection meeting in 2014.
University of Sulaimani (UoS) is a public higher education institution, established in 1968, the main campus is located in the city of Sulaimani in Kurdistan of Iraq. University of Sulaimani currently has 21 colleges and 98 departments, with more than 23.000 students, 2100 academic staff and more than 3000 administration staff. UoS offers Bachelor, Higher Diploma, Master and PhD degrees in various fields of study.
University of Zakho (UoZ) is a public institution, located in Zakho, the Duhok Governorate, in KRG of Iraq, founded and established by the Government of Kurdistan-Iraq on July 08, 2010 as an independent university. Before this date, there were the Colleges of Education and of Commerce, which were affiliated with the University of Duhok. The University of Zakho implements the Bologna process which has been implemented since the academic year 2017-2018. There is an active centre at the University named Zakho Centre for Kurdish Studies, that does sustainable conferences and workshops per year and organizes seminars for distinguished speakers around the world. In addition, there is a research team group in the mentioned centre that is doing research on the historical and cultural heritage of Kurds. The team consisted of various specializations in history, cultural heritage and diversity.
Soran University (SU) was founded in 2009. As a public university, it has expanded its academic relationships at both national and international levels. According to the KRG’s ranking for the national universities, SU tops the list. Soran University has five faculties and a research centre. Its 25 scientific departments award bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. It has approximately 8000 students with a broad teaching and administrative staff who work on permanent, contract and volunteer basis. The two departments that will be involved are the Department of Sociology and Department of History.
University of Aden was established in 1970 in Aden, south of Yemen. It aims to graduate distinguishable students and prepare highly qualified persons. It depends on the system of teaching classes distributed between Bachelor, Master and PHD degree. There are 17 colleges and 12 Scientific Centres.
Taiz University is located in the city of Taiz, Yemen. It is one of the public universities operating under the supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Taiz University was established at the beginning as a branch of the Faculty of Education at the University of Sana’a in 1985-1986. After that, it became an independent university in 1994-1995.
Thanks to a review of the courses in the following departments (Sociology Department – Tourism and Hotel Management – History) that was conducted by the project coordinator together with UNIMED, it emerges that university academic courses in Yemen, only reflects the culture of minorities and societies in general, and some social practices and cultural characteristics that characterize societies in different ages. In the Department of Tourism and Hotel Management at the first level, a Yemeni cultural heritage course is taught. At the third level, there is a specialization in tourist guidance, guidance, tourist significance, and the course of the Yemeni- Islamic archaeological monuments. In the fourth level, there is a course of management of heritage resources, museums, and the ancient Yemeni monuments course, of which all these courses are concerned with cultural heritage, both material and moral.
Sapienza University of Rome with over 700 years of history, more than 120,000 total students, 3,500 professors, 2,100 officials, technicians and librarians in addition to 1,350 employees in its university hospitals, is the largest University in Europe. The most influential university rankings worldwide place Sapienza among the first Italian Universities for its research, educational quality, and international dimension. Sapienza currently offers 300-degree programmes (Bachelor’s and Master’s) – among which over 60 are taught in English – 200 Advanced Professional Courses, over 90 PhDs and 80specialization schools. Over 30.000 students come from other Italian cities, nearly 10,000 are international students and over 2,200 students a year take part in international mobility programmes.
Sapienza will participate in the project with one of its top Departments, the Department of Ancient World Studies (Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità), 1st by subject in the QS University Rankings, which runs a number of top research and teaching programs in Western Asia and the Mediterranean.
Evora University will participate in the project with the CIDEHUS – Interdisciplinary Centre for History, Culture and Societies and the UNESCO Chair in Intangible Heritage and Traditional Know-How: Linking Heritage. Founded in 1994, CIDEHUS is a research centre in the areas of History and Social Sciences that analyses societal changes over the long term, in an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. It selected the South and the Mediterranean as a privileged laboratory to observe these dynamics. The researchers are organized in two working groups: G1 – Societal Changes and G2 – Heritage, Literacy and Intercultural Understanding. The University of Évora’s undergraduate, master’s and doctoral courses in History and Cultural Heritage are directly linked to CIDEHUS. The Evora team will be involved especially in the Capacity Building activities, where a larger team of members of the Chair will be involved as researchers and professors in other national and international HEIs or technicians in public institutes. The UNESCO Chair, in place since 2013, foster the protection and conservation of heritage in all its forms – tangible and intangible, cultural and natural, movable and immovable – and strengthen heritage conservation and capacity-building, particularly in Africa, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which are UNESCO’s global priorities, but also in the Mediterranean region where new experiences and knowledge have recently been acquired.
UNIMED – Mediterranean Universities Union – is a network of Higher Education and Research Institutions, active in promoting academic cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean region and in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the Middle East and in Western Balkans (www.uni-med.net).The image that best represents our association is that of a University without Walls. It counts 179 associated universities and research centres coming from 25 countries on both shores of the Mediterranean (data updated in March 2025). UNIMED mission is to facilitate international academic and research cooperation in order to enhance the scientific, cultural, social, and economic development of the region. UNIMED works on several topics as many as the Universities and regional priorities are. It carries on projects in different fields, ranging from governance issues at the University level to integration of refugees, as well as sustainable development, digitalisation, employability and intercultural dialogue promoting mobility in the Euro-Mediterranean Region.
Besides, it keeps a strong dialogue with Academic experts in the framework of its thematic SubNetworks and with its institutional partners. All its activities aim at contributing to scientific, cultural, social and economic cooperation.
ICOMOS is a non-governmental international organisation dedicated to the conservation of the world’s monuments and sites. It works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places. It is the only global non-government organisation of this kind, which is dedicated to promoting the application of theory, methodology, and scientific techniques to the conservation of the architectural and archaeological heritage.
Based in Duhok, Kurdistan region of Iraq, KAO contributes to maximize the connection between HEIs with the civil society, the cultural and archaeological sites and museums, thanks to its embedding to the Kurdish local context.