<< Background >>The colleges of the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) aspire to enrich the quality of students’ outcome and behaviour while in college and upon graduation. However, creating an enabling and inclusive environment for students’ development through an effective student support system, in terms of services and facilities, was one of the major challenges faced by the RUB. Therefore, this project was implemented to establish a counselling service centre at each of the nine colleges in the RUB.<< Objectives >>The specific objectives of the project were as follows: •Establishing a counselling, wellbeing and mental health support centre at each of the nine colleges of Royal University of Bhutan (RUB). •Capacity building of human resources in the area of counselling, & mental health at RUB .
•Development of a Digital Platform to support Mental Health, Wellbeing and Counseling Services for RUB students.
•Supporting the centres with essential resources to cater services to the students and staff.<< Implementation >>In the beginning, the project conducted an initial assessment study. In the next, a training manual was developed and capacity training was launched. Then the project directed the individual colleges to identify a suitable location for the centres and the essential resources were distributed. In addition, a digital platform dedicated to enhance the support services was developed. The project supported in day to day operation of the centres. Finally, a impact study in form BA was conducted.<< Results >>As a result of this project a unique model of student support centre at nine colleges of RUB was established. The project trained 27 individuals (three from each college). A digital platform was developed. Essential resources for the H&W B centre was distributed. The project published two research articles, two book chapters, and a major Beneficiary Assessment and Impact Evaluation report. The project initiated establishment of new EU project office at RUB and collaborated with nine agencies.

Including children with special educational needs (SEN) in Bhutanese regular classroom is a recent concept. With much awareness and initiatives for the inclusion of children with SEN in mainstream schools by government agencies, local civil society organizations and international organizations, there has been increase in the enrollment of children with SEN in schools every year. But given the limited professional support in the classroom and resource constraints, supporting children with SEN has been a major challenge. Studies have claimed that Bhutanese classrooms with large size (40 to 45 students in a classroom) handled by a single SEN teacher who do not have formal qualification of teaching children with SEN has posed a serious challenge in supporting the needs of the children with SEN. Further, this situation is worsened by the fact that Bhutanese classrooms do not have teacher assistants to support the children and SEN teachers. Therefore, it is asserted that the provision of teacher assistants to assist students with SEN in schools would ease the burden of under resourced teachers. In addition, the need for teacher assistants has been emphasized in Bhutan's Standard for SEN (2017), National Policy for Persons with Disabilities (2019) and other national policies alike. With these national issues and policy expectations the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) has proposed this project in developing and implementing the first ever National Diploma programme in Teacher Assistant. This project will have implications for RUB in terms of capacity building, best practices, and industrial linkages with EU HEIs. It is also expected that with the implementation of this project, children with SEN and their parents in Bhutan are benefited, and provide employment opportunities to Bhutanese youths. All in all, this project is expected to address in attaining the the long term SDGs and the aspirations of developmental philosophy of Gross National Happiness.

The objective of the Cimceb project was to initiate and strengthen the education in the areas of renewable energy and energy efficiency in buildings to enhance the possibilities to decrease the energy consumption and minimize the environmental impact in the participating countries in Nepal and Bhutan.The project supported the modernization, accessibility and internationalization of the partner countries universities and improved the quality of higher education and its relevance for the labor market and society.Cimceb developed new and innovative education programs in two Nepalese universities and in one Bhutanese, including hands-on facilities for students, in order to improve the level of competences and skills in the universities.The activities started by analyzing the need in the society of higher education programs on Energy Efficient Building Technique in Nepal and Bhutan. As supposed, this subject was of great interest for the syndicate of engineers, construction companies, real estate owners and users; the work proceeded by developing courses and Master programs.An important part was the development of the laboratories, which are used in the courses to get a deeper understanding of the theoretical subjects. In order to improve the capability of the teachers, training courses and study visits were performed in the European universities, in Nepal and BhutanEven if the proposed plan for the Cimceb project was to start a full master program in one university and develop separate courses in the other two, all three partner universities started Master programs within Cimceb project. About 50 courses have been developed and approved within the universities. Three education laboratories have been completed with necessary tools. The result of the Cimceb project has also furthered the cooperation between the partner universities of Nepal and Bhutan as well as between partner universities and EU-partners.

The purpose of this project is to address the problems related to expert workforce in the field of diagnosis, monitoring, and maintenance of the power systems and related components in the partner countries by bringing innovation in higher education teaching and learning methods in order to fill the expertise gap and enhance its relevance for the labour market and the society as a whole. The project will help Nepal and Bhutan to produce in-house human resources in the field of condition monitoring of power equipment making both the countries independent of external consultants. The main objective of the project is to implement real problem based teaching and learning methods in the curriculum of HEIs of the partner countries. This is possible thanks to the expertise and know how of the EU partner Universities and their long term teaching in this field. The Project will also help the EU partners to renew their education in this field and build a sustainable flow of students in both directions.

The enhancement of Gross National Happiness (GNH) has been the most significant national priority for Bhutan since the 1980s, and it has evolved into the guiding purpose of Bhutan’s development. To increase GNH and support sustainable development, knowledge is needed to deepen the understanding of real life at each societal level. Qualitative research data have been recognized as critically important to contribute to evidence-based policies which address social and developmental challenges. There is however a disjuncture between the desire for qualitative research data and the absence of knowledge, skills and technical infrastructure to teach qualitative research methods.The HAPPY Project aims to include innovative Qualitative Research teaching approaches in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities at 4 Colleges in Bhutan. We thus aim to modernize and renew existing curricula by developing innovative modules for existing courses and enhance the competencies of academics in qualitative research methods (QRM). The HAPPY Project uses a people centered approach to co-create innovative teaching methodologies and accentuates “learning by doing”. The implementation of the renewed curricula will contribute to the development of students’ transversal skills which will increase their employability. To accomplish all of the above and increase its societal impact, the HAPPY Project aims to sensitize stakeholders both in HEIs and society regarding the value and the potential of using QR data. This will strengthen the existing relationships between HEIs and societal stakeholders, including Civil Society, government, local communities, industry and enterprises. This in turn will create a space to explore further QR collaboration in the future. By disseminating project milestones to societal stakeholders, the project will initiate the use of QR data in domains beyond HEI. The HAPPY project has the potential to enhance well-being, and thus GNH.