On 30 October 2023, the project team met with the newly appointed Rector of University ‘Isa Boletini’ in Mitrovica (UIBM), Ms. Merita Shala and congratulated her on the new role. HERAS Plus expressed readiness for supporting UIBM in further building the strategic and institutional capacities and ensure the continuity of the cooperation.

The project also participated in the formal ceremony of handing over the new equipment funded by the HERAS Plus. On this occasion, three lots of equipment were supported: The first lot is a seismograph equipment which will be used in the Faculty of Geosciences courses and will help students understand the refraction of seismic waves on different geological layers, rocks and soil units to characterize the subsurface geological conditions and geological structure for studying purposes. The second lot is a convection equipment, for which the students helps them understand the topic of free and forced convection on various heating elements in which material-bound heat transport takes place as the fluid in motion. The third lot are the toolkits to asses psychological and academic development, which will help researchers to understand cause and effect, and will help them to identify the need to intervene to improve properly, will be used by Faculty of Education.

The Rector of the UIBM Ms. Shala thanked HERAS Plus, the implementing consortium (WUS Austria, ZSI and OeAD) as well as Austrian Development Agency for this great support and stated that this intervention supports the implementation of their strategy terms of promoting research inputs/outputs.