The academic component of the Brain Gain Programme is being piloted in the newly established Aleksander Moisiu University in Durres, and is supporting its academic management team to identify professors or people that have been engaged in the education field, either in the US or Canada, or elsewhere. Short-term lectures are already underway with senior lecturers from the United States coming to teach in Albanian universities. Support also goes to a series of incentives to develop a new model of academic management.

The Programme also works to improve working conditions in universities and research institutions through the selection of individuals based on professional rather than political criteria – those who appreciate and motivate research and maintain gender equality at all levels.

Improvements are expected to increase the mobility of Albanian academics and researchers within the international scientific community for joint projects, temporary employment in universities and research institutions abroad, participation in conferences and seminars, exchange of information, and joint publications, from a base within Albania.

For further information, please have a look at the attached work programme.

Project website/source: http://www.braingain.gov.al/, as accessed on March 6, 2009.