On 22 September 2022, UNESCO-ICHEI and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST) co-organized the official launch event of IIOE pilot project in Mongolia titled Blended Learning Capacity Building for STEM Teachers. The launch of the project was witnessed by representatives from UNESCO, the Ministry of Education and Science of Mongolia, the Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO, MUST, and other Mongolian universities, as well as international experts and scholars in the field of blended learning and teacher professional development.

The Opening Session was chaired by Professor HAN Wei, Executive Deputy Director of UNESCO-ICHEI. Ms. Urangaa Erdenee, Program Specialist for Education, Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO, Ms. Oyunbileg Oirov, Expert of the Department of Policy and Management on Higher and Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Science of Mongolia, and Prof. Namnan Tumurpurev, President of MUST, spoke at the opening remarks. Ms. Urangaa Erdenee expressed appreciation for UNESCO-ICHEI's ongoing collaboration with Mongolia around its education reform. She highlighted that today's launch of the pilot project is a prime example of Mongolia's commitment to accelerate the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 - Quality Education. Ms. Oyunbileg Oirov acknowledged the importance of the pilot project in providing important input to support the implementation of blended learning in Mongolian universities, and expressed her expectation that the methodological recommendations and assessment tools resulting from the project will be reflected in the legal and policy documents related to blended learning in the future. Prof. Namnan Tumurpurev reviewed the series of collaborations between MUST and UNESCO-ICHEI and noted that the good practices in blended teaching in Mongolian universities could also be widely disseminated through IIOE's global network.

Next, Prof. Uuganbayar Tumurkhuu, Director of the Office of International Affairs and Cooperation at MUST, chaired the session “Introducing the IIOE Pilot Project”, where Dr. FENG Siyuan, Chief of Knowledge Production and Communications Centre, UNESCO-ICHEI, and Mr. LYU Feng, Assistant Director Chief of IIOE Management Centre, UNESCO-ICHEI, gave a presentation on the rationale and framework of the IIOE Pilot Project respectively.

Ms. Tatiana Shutova, Programme Specialist, Unit of Teacher Professional Development and Networking, UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, chaired the "From Plans to Actions" session. Prof. Ganbat Danaa, Director of Open Education Center at MUST Coordinator of IIOE National Centre in Mongolia, gave an overview of the project and its action plan. Then, Dr. Tserenchimed Purevsuren, Senior Specialist at the Open Education Centre at MUST, led a discussion with representatives of master teachers from MUST and other Mongolian universities to share their thoughts and ideas about this project.

In addition, the project was peer-reviewed by international experts. Prof. Shahbaz Khan, Director of UNESCO Beijing Cluster Office, highly praised UNESCO-ICHIEI and MUST for their preparations for the project and believed that the project would not only promote the development of blended learning of STEM subjects in Mongolian universities, but also serve as a model for more domestic universities to implement blending teaching in the future. Prof. Charles R. Graham from Brigham Young University, USA, said the pilot project, focusing on capacity building on blended learning for university teachers, could provide a solid foundation for promoting quality blended learning at both institutional and national levels. Prof. Waqar Mahmood, Director of Al-Khwarizmi Institute of Computer Science, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan Coordinator of IIOE National Centre in Pakistan, fully acknowledged the initiative of UNESCO-ICHEI to launch the IIOE pilot project at partner institutions to address the salient issues of digitization in higher education and respond to national priorities, while also expecting positive results from the project.

In closing remarks, Prof. LI Ming particularly acknowledged the attention and contribution of all parties to the pilot project in Mongolia. He pointed out that enhancing the digital competency of university teachers in blended learning is the core and foundation of the digital transformation of higher education, and the pilot design has taken into consideration of the characteristics and needs of Mongolia and MUST, which can result in some personalized and localized experiences that can be shared and scaled up in the future. According to him, UNESCO-ICHEI will work together with IIOE's partner institutions around the globe to prepare the IIOE Development Report 2019-2022 so as to take stock of the successful experiences and practices of IIOE partner institutions in blended learning, as well as to jointly explore how IIOE can better support the digital transformation of partner universities.