Twenty-two representatives of eight Haitian, Irish and Austrian Higher Education Institutions, members of the EMINENT project, gathered together from 26th February 2019 to 1st March 2019 to celebrate the Kick Off Meeting of the project. EMINENT is a Capacity Building Higher Education project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, which aims to develop Higher Education Quality Assurance Systems in Haiti and in addition extend impact to the Caribbean region. The University of Alicante, relying upon its expertise on international project management and capacity building, coordinates this project “Towards the Enhancement and Harmonisation of HEIs Quality Assurance in Haiti in response to national and International Developments”.

Members of the EMINENT project shared Tuesday 26th February 2019 with more than one hundred representatives from other two European Projects, also coordinated by the University of Alicante, in the areas of internationalization of Higher Education in Philippines (ANTENA) and financial management within Higher Education in Cambodia (BALANCE). This first day was a good opportunity to network, understand the approach to capacity building in the European Union, get acquainted with EACEA project management practices and incentivize synergies between international projects.

Subsequently, on Wednesday 27th February 2019, EMINENT representatives took an in-depth look to each one of the tasks, activities and deliverables of each of the workpackages foreseen at EMINENT project design. Partners from universities of Haiti, Austria and Ireland engaged in operational discussions about capacity building strategies to implement and adapt each one of the activities to the context of Haiti.

Afterwards, on Thursday 28th February 2019 EMINENT representatives participated at a Site Visit to Quality Assurance Services at the University of Alicante, interacting with Quality Assurance experts at University level from our institution and facilitating transfer and adaptation of good practices from Europe to the Caribbean region and Haiti. Within the context of this effort, contributions from the Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP) from Haiti was key to orientate the scope and reach of the Quality Assurance reforms in the country.

Finally, the last day on Friday 1st March 2019 was devoted to offer concrete agreement on the upcoming g steps to implement this Erasmus+ project, specially in the areas of the definition of the Needs Analysis methodology which will define Quality Assurance practices at Higher Education level in Haiti. By doing that, the University of Alicante will strive to contribute to implement one of the best examples of Quality Assurance projects at Higher Education level in the Caribbean region, and particularly, in Haiti. EMINENT representatives will meet again the last week of May 2019 , visiting university partners from Cork (Ireland) and Wien (Austria).