Tempus TradPro Project Report Project n° 544132-TEMPUS-1-2013-1- FR-TEMPUS-JPCR: Development and Implementation of Masters Programmes in Food Safety and the Production and Marketing of TRADitional Food PROducts in Russia and Kazakhstan Co-funded by the Tempus programme of the European Union 1 SUmmarY 1. What is the Tempus TradPro Project? 5 1.1. History of the project 5 1.2. Political, geographical and social context in 2012 5 2. Consortium presentation 7 2.1. Academic partners 8 2.2. Non-academic partners 11 3. Management of the project 13 3.1. Work packages and responsibilities 13 3.2. Project monitoring and decision making 13 3.3. Financial management 15 3.4. Quality monitoring 17 4. Specific objectives : results and sustainability 19 4.1. Develop and enhance relationships between 20 universities and professional stakeholders 4.2. Increase capacities among universities to develop 22 new curricula that fit the needs of the economic sector 4.3. Create 3 modules to be implemented in Masters 25 programmes in food safety and the production and marketing of traditional food products 4.4. Strengthen relations between RU and KZ universities 32 and between EU and RU/KZ universities in the area of food safety and food science and technology 5. Synthesis 34 5.1. Project timetable 34 5.2. Results 34 5.3. What is next? 35 Annexes 38 Annex 1. List of associated enterprises 39 Annex 2. List of equipment bought with TradPro funds 43 Annex 3. Publications and communication actions 47 Annex 4. List of partners’ contacts 53 3 3 3 3 3 5 6 9 11 11 11 13 15 17 18 20 23 30 32 32 32 33 36 36 40 44 49 This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 4 1. WHat IS THE TEMPUS TradPRO PROJECT? TradPro is a Tempus Capacity Building in the Field of Higher Education (Joint Project) project that started in December 2013. It was planned to last for three years, but the project has beneficiated from a one-year exten- sion by the European Union, so it ends officially on November 30th, 2017. The project involves 19 academic and non-academic partners from Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Italy, Sweden and France. Montpellier SupAgro, France, coordinates it. 17 Teachers trained 3 in EU new Masters and 3 A methodology master modules designed : upgrading of 4 guide (TARGET) for existing Masters Food Safety (15 ECTS) implementing the training modules Traditional Food Processing (18 ECTS) Marketing and Development Short Entrepreneurship (15 ECTS) of Professional Technical Training Development Courses aimed at Centres 44 professionals students already Creation graduated - 118 students of an e-learning enrolled in 2017 course on “Training Engineering” 1.1. Project history Before finally being selected for EU funding, several The adventure of this project began in… 2003. Mr attempts were necessary in order to refine the project Bernard Faye (from CIRAD, France), Ms Gaukhar Konus- content and the consortium composition. Prior to payeva (from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, 2013 and at the early stage of this adventure, a huge Kazakhstan) and Mr Gérard Loiseau (from Montpellier work with editing and connecting with potential par- SupAgro, France) were doing research together on tners was done by Mr Faye, Ms Konuspayeva and Mr camel and mare’s milk production in Kazakhstan. They Loiseau. Many partners from different countries have cooperated with the private sector, especially with been involved among the proposals: Kirgiz Republic, the enterprise ANTIGEN, who wanted to promote the Italy, Belgium, Spain, Sweden… Some of them did not exportation of camel and mare’s milk outside Kazakhs- become partners of the project in the end but they all tan. Their observation was the following: the quality added some inputs to the TradPro project. The CIRAD of production processes (which was the responsibility applied for the first five proposals of the project within of the veterinary profession) and the training of vete- the Tempus Programme, but as it is not a Higher Educa- rinarians were too weak. The idea of a proposal for a tion institution, the proposals were actually ineligible. Tempus project is born with the main objective to That is how Montpellier SupAgro became the coordi- improve the training of professionals on the quality of nator of the project, and Frédéric Mens (Montpellier milk production processes in Kazakhstan. SupAgro) the “proposal manager”. 5 The main consortium/project change was made in Unfortunately, existing programmes in partner univer- 2010, when it was decided to mix two proposals in one, sities do not cover all necessary aspects of food pro- the project about Kazakhstan, and another one with duction technology, and cannot meet food manufac- Russian partners and similar scientific themes. turers’ needs for specialists with the required expertise, leading to weak, infrequent and ineffective interaction That is also how, if milk production in Kazakhstan between educational institutions and the agribusiness figured among the project topics at the very beginning, sector. the ideas evolved and it was decided to drop this topic. Instead, TradPro should evolve around food safety and Addressing this situation demands reform and moder- processing of traditional food products (animal and nisation of higher education and the creation of oppor- vegetal origin), the objective being to provide training tunities for continuous education and training. In 2011, to professionals, train Masters students for the needs Russia embarked on the modernisation of higher edu- of the labour market and to support entrepreneurs cation in accordance with principles of the Bologna and producers to market their products in Kazakhstan process. and in the Russian Federation. In this context, TradPro addresses several important issues in the Russian and Kazakhstani higher educa- 1.2. Political, geographical and social tion systems. That is why the main objective of the context in 2012 project, which is to develop and implement Masters Since the introduction of privatisation and land reforms Programmes in Food Safety and the Production and in the early 1990s, the agrarian sector in Russia and Marketing of TRADitional Food PROducts in Russia and Kazakhstan has undergone considerable changes, inclu- Kazakhstan, has been declined in four sub-objectives: ding the concentration of the great majority of livestock Develop and enhance relationships between uni- in private hands and the breakdown of Soviet era pro- versities and professional stakeholders duction, distribution systems and agricultural subsidies. Increase capacities among universities to develop While there is consumer demand for traditional food new curricula that fit the needs of the economic products of high nutritional value, these are mostly sector produced for family consumption because of the small Create 3 modules to be implemented in Masters scale of the producers and their inability to reach econo- programmes in food safety and the production and mies of scale and get their products to the market. This marketing of traditional food products threatens the economic viability of nomadic pastora- lism in the regions of the TradPro partners. Strengthen relations between RU and KZ universi- ties and between EU and RU/KZ universities in the Another issue is that agricultural workers have lower area of food safety and food science and technology educational levels than in other branches of the To reach these ambitious goals, a consortium of 19 economy. According to the Russian Federal Bureau of academic and non-academic partners (including from Statistics, in 2008 only 9.1 per cent of all agricultural the private sector) from Kazakhstan, the Russian Fede- workers had some university education, while another ration, Italy, Sweden and France has been created, each 17.6 per cent had some vocational training. Agricultural of them bringing its own skills and resources. sector educational levels are similarly low in Kazakhs- tan. The low level of education and training in these sectors negatively affects worker productivity and limits job creation and entrepreneurship in the sector. In addition to the issue of employment, food security, food safety and educational reform are also high prio- rities within Russia’s and Kazakhstan’s overall deve- lopment strategies. For example, in January 2010, the Russian president issued a decree endorsing the doc- trine of food security within the Russian Federation, and the government passed an order establishing the official state policy for the 2010−2020 period regar- ding nutrition and encouraging a healthy diet for the population. 6 2. PRESENtatioN OF THE CONsortiUM 7 2.1. Academic partners S. Toraighyrov Pavlodar State University (PSU), Pavlodar, Kazakhstan A. Baitursynov Kostanay State University (KSU), Kostanay, Kazakhstan PSU was established in 1960. It is one of the largest uni- versities in Kazakhstan, and is an educational, scientific KSU aims at development of the unified scientific and and cultural centre not only for the Pavlodar region, educational space of northern region of Kazakhstan but also for the republic as a whole. Research and edu- that provides its dynamic, continuous and stable social cation are organised around 8 faculties and 11 research and economic development. There are more than 5 000 centres. The Faculty of Agro-technology was organised students and about 420 academic staff. KSU works in in 2009 and now offers a Masters degree in Techno- fields such as Agriculture, Economics, Engineering, logy of Food Products and five bachelor’s degrees: Veterinary Sciences, Humanities, etc. KSU provides Agronomy, Forest Resources and Forestry, Biotechno- education in 35 Bachelor Programmes, 21 Masters logy, Technology of Food Products, and Technology of Programmes and 4 PhD Programmes. Programmes Animal Food Products. PSU is equipped with both food are taught in Kazakh, Russian and English.