In 2016 the annual conference took place in November in Erevan, Armenia. It gathered around 70 participants from CIS countries including representatives from national centers for educational assessment, ministries of education representatives, representatives of the World Bank and international experts. The conference was conducted in cooperation with the World Bank. Workshops from international experts on issues of the use of tools of formative assessment, organization of national exams, development of assessment system at national level were performed during the conference. Video conference with representatives of READ Trust Fund was organized to discuss participations of countries in grant contest. During the conference CICED accomplished following goals: (a) establishment and expansion of cooperation with relevant CIS organizations; (b) involvement of CIS specialists into CICED activities; (c) promotion of Russian assessment tools and methodology for more frequent use in partner countries; (d) launch of preparational stage of cross-country research; (e) review of CICED activities performed in 2016 in frames of the READ Expert Council.
In 2017 CICED cooperated with EAOKO and conducted joint conference in September on the premises of Higher School of Economics. The conference gathered more than 200 participants. The conference started with pre-conference seminars for participants of the cross-country research and research teams that involved in these works. Workshops during the conference aimed at teambuilding and provision of additional training for country teams, resolving technical and methodological issues in preparations for the cross-country research, building better cooperation with CICED and Russian experts.