The Establishment of a Competitive Innovation Fund (CIF) is Under Way

The Competitive Innovation Fund (CIF) will be established as a Competitive Grant Mechanism coordinated by the MES. The establishment of the CIF aims at fostering modernization of higher education programs and learning environment, improving infrastructure, e-learning methods, introducing innovations in terms of teaching and learning, modernizing and upgrading labs and physical infrastructure to meet the program specifics, strengthening the labor market linkages, improving gender imbalances in the education system, especially in STEM subjects (support HEIs to attract female students to STEM programs and help narrow the gender gap).

Experts – local and international – were selected via international tender to develop an operational manual for CIF. Experts cooperated with MES and developed a complete set of documents: fund structure, rules, committee members’ authority, responsible structures, application submitting rules and dates, etc.

Presently, experts with MES representatives work on the draft documents for further improvement.

The CIF will operate in 2022-2024 and award up to 40 grants with the support of the World Bank.