The IESP project is classified as a national structural project under category 2: Improving management and operation of Higher Education Institutions.
Higher education system in Montenegro comprises one public university, 3 private universities and 5 private faculties, distributed in all regions of the country. The public and two private universities have been selected for participation in IESP as institutions that were the subject of Institutional evaluations conducted by EUA IEP in 2014 and the follow-up evaluation in 2018, which were both preceded by self-evaluation processes conducted at all three HEIs. Moreover, the three universities account for over 95% of the total student population in Montenegro, thus the project activities are expected to yield results for the entire higher education system of Montenegro.
IESP project directly refers to strategic planning and internationalization of higher education, but also to the implementation and monitoring of internationalization strategies.
Each Montenegrin HEI participating in IESP will develop an Internationalization Strategy for the period 2020-2025 that will cover the general issues such as the overall mission, vision and strategic goals. Each Strategy will be accompanied by an Action plan for its realization that will provide a detailed account of the planned activities, deadlines for their accomplishment, the responsible actors and contingency actions. The activities carried out during the project lifetime will address the most urgent issues at present such as the development of supporting documentation to internationalization, development of the sets of procedures for administration of student and staff mobility, procedures for administration of bilateral agreements and international projects, the design of courses that will be offered in English, the development of interdisciplinary summer school programmes in English and the development or redesign of English web sites of Montenegrin HEIs.
The IESP project aims to enhance international competitiveness of Montenegrin HEIs, by providing the best model for strengthening capacities for various aspects of internationalization.