PICASA is a TEMPUS project funded by the European Union, active in Armenia, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine. PICASA was created to promote recognition of Eastern Neighboring Area HE systems through development and integration of internationalization dimensions into structural and cultural components of HEIs management.

The project has few main objectives including:

• Integration of international dimension into teaching, learning and research functions of universities through developing and implementing respective policies and procedures;
• Identification and development of skills, attitudes and knowledge in students, faculty and staff to promote internationalization;
• Development of ethos and culture that values and supports intercultural and international perspectives, initiatives and their quality assurance

Principle outcomes and outputs of the project so far include but are not limited to the following:

- Trained staff and revised functions of International Offices of partner universities that become building blocks of the ethos and culture supporting international perspectives. Partners optimized functions and roles of their International offices based on the priorities outlined by each partner

- Universities had developed and adopted their Internationalization policies and strategies. Internationalization is seen as priority for all partners who had developed university-wide policies and procedures for internationalization in teaching, learning and research

- Development new approaches to curricula internationalization and academic programs with internationalization dimensions.

- Developed new approaches to research internationalization and scholarly collaboration as well as for study abroad, student and staff mobility

- The projects offers its model for Quality assurance of internationalization and has developed Handbook for QA of Internationalization. Main issues covered in the Handbook include but are not limited to: Defining I of HE; I-Structure and I-Policy; Management of HE international relations: skills, information types, models, etc. It also covers such issues as the use of benchmarking instrument; student internationalization. 

It is foreseen that within the project not only HEIs but also participating Ministries of Education and Science from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine will address education and science internationalization in their corresponding documentation.