Globalisation has accelerated the pace of internationalisation of higher education (IoHE) worldwide, including our 3 target countries in the South Asian (SA) region, Afghanistan (AF), India (IN) and Nepal (NP). The globalised market requires graduates to have international (int’l), foreign language and intercultural skills to communicate with int’l clients. Higher education institutions (HEIs) plays a critical role in preparing and facilitating a skilled, knowledge workforce, they are placing more importance on internationalisation. However, SA, home to a 25% of the world’s population & a youthful region with more than 600 million people under 18 (UNICEF 2015), has failed to respond to the demand on IoHE. The poor internationalisation practices in the region may jeopardise the socio-economic development by unfulfilling the preparation of students’ employability & limiting the int’l profile of the HEIs. MERGE has taken an endogenous approach to address the challenges. It commences with a benchmarking exercise to standardise internationalisation practice alongside 2 study visits to EU. After that, it equips 366 people (incl. non-consortium partners) via 6 trainings and 6 English courses to develop strategic goals for both IROs and institutions until 2025. Meanwhile, 5 national activities will be organised to promote IROs’ services, e.g. 6 mobility weeks and 6 video filmed. To enhance the student mobility services, 1 guideline will be developed which can be adapted by 6 PC HEIs and other HEIs. A 45-member regional network will be established to encourage regional cooperation and integration. To increase MERGE exposure on the international platform, 2 international conferences will be organised to stimulate cooperation and dialogue. The sustainability and long-term impact of MERGE is ensured by enhanced institutional capacity and engaging non-consortium partners.

The instrumental role of universities in socio-economic development is today widely recognised. Enhancing links and cross-fertilisation between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and their business environment in the interest of graduates' employability, improved competitiveness and growth is high on the agenda of policy makers and HEIs around the globe.The benefits of university-business cooperation are however as widely recognised as the difficulties that still exist in this field. Lack of integrated approaches and strategic management, inability to bring the different motivations closer, bureaucracy, and need to provide staff and students with the right skills are some of the obstacles generally identified.Challenges increase in countries with complex environments, like Indonesia. In addition to intricate institutional and regulatory frameworks and regional disparity in university capacity, evidence shows a generalised lack of understanding and trust, and little or no involvement of business stakeholders in HEIs’ strategies, what hampers productive university-business interaction. To bring the two sectors together, it is critical to create opportunities for structured vision and common work.SMART proposes a set of focused and complementary activities for enhanced university-business cooperation at Indonesian HEIs to help them identify opportunities for development, generate research-based knowledge, and contribute to the on-going education in the field. The project will facilitate the transfer of good practices from the EU to the PC HEIs; the set-up of professional units (Business Engagement Centres) at 7 PC HEIs and training to their staff to let them accompany students and researchers in making their business ventures a reality. The creation of a University-Business Network, as a platform for dialogue and exchange of experiences, and the Start-Up Nights and other stakeholders' events will also contribute to inspiring nation-wide change.

Knowledge-based societies are underpinned by solid capacities in Intellectual Property (IP), research and innovation (R&I). These three pillars are closely interrelated, being sound IP practice instrumental in managing R&I effectively. The increased sophistication of research and global demand for competitive R&I conform challenging scenarios for HEIs, particularly in regions with unsteady IP systems, such as the ASEAN, where IP legislation and performance differs from country to country. The endeavours made at the regional level to align IP practice with international standards need to be supplemented with institutional actions of different nature if HEIs genuinely aspire to become active components in the innovation chain.Against this background, SPIRE’s overall objective is contributing to the effectiveness of R&I management at the PC HEIs by enhancing IP capacities at three complementary levels, thereby addressing major difficulties identified in the target ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand): ➢ Knowledge & kills of staff and students, by transferring good practices from EU HEIs, and implementing the Capacity Building Programme (on-site/online) for professional development;➢ Infrastructure & policy, by setting up IP Management Units (IPMUs) at HEIs to provide comprehensive and centralised IP assistance, and formulating/upgrading institutional IP policies; and ➢ Regional cooperation, by promoting regional-wide initiatives, such as a functional IP Network for HEIs, able to pass on experiences from more advanced countries to less developed ones and boost improvement.

The irruption of Human Resource Management (HRM) as a strategic element for quality development of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is relatively recent. Few decades back and until our days, HR approaches just focused on staff recruitment, employment contracts and payment of salaries. This scenario is deeply changing with the international growth and increasing complexity of Higher Education. HRM aspects such as staff motivation, continuous development, evaluation, and strategic planning are gathering momentum under HEIs’ strategic plans worldwide.The evolution of HRM is, however, slow and certainly challenging in developing countries. In Southeast Asia, HEIs are facing significant difficulties derived from disparities in their countries’ political and social structures as well as the backgrounds of their Higher Education systems. Well-structured HRM strategies could very much contribute to HE development and HEIs’ autonomy, thus supporting the processes of reform towards regional growth. Against this background, HR4Asia aims at contributing to Higher Education organisational reform in Southeast Asia by improving HRM at the target HEIs from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and Thailand.This global objective will be pursued by means of three specific objectives, namely: • Building capacity in HRM at Southeast Asian HEIs to enhance organizational performance;• Improving HRM Strategic plans for more staffing autonomy; • Setting up of the ASEAN University HR Network as a regional forum for the exchange of knowledge and best practices.With these, HR4Asia will introduce in Southeast Asian HEIs a scheme to developing and implementing innovative HRM approaches, paying attention to transversal and additional skills, such as communication and self-learning, as well. Tailor-made dissemination activities addressing non-partner HEIs, Ministries of Higher Education and other stakeholders will promote the project objectives, paving the way for its sustainability .

Definition and establishment of a new Master Course on “Environmental Protection and Energy Efficient Buildings” in three TN, DZ and MO universities, with affiliation to other three universities. The main scope is the promotion of EU best practices in the terms of educational methodologies and specific knowledge related to the energy efficiency and sustainability of buildings. Two are the specific objectives:1. Curricular reform: to implement an effective curricular development oriented towards the labour market requirements; to support the employability expectations of the graduates by training them with up-to-date methodologies in the field of energy efficient buildings. The curricula reform will be promoted, officially recognized and actually implemented in the six involved Universities in different training directions according to the local needs, with official Master Courses implementation in 3 of each by developing a versatile training programme, flexible and adaptive to labour market requirements. These Courses will be implemented over the project lifecycle; the first academic year will be completed in the framework of the third project year. 2. Links university-enterprises: to develop a networking system among the PCs’ Universities and stakeholders, in order to remedy to the currently fragmented scientific background in Energy Efficiency and to the lack of distribution of knowledge, expertise, information and data. An “EU – South Mediterranean network among Green Institutions” will be officially established, to represent a tangible actual tool for enhancing the leading role of Higher Education Institutions in policies related to Energy Efficient Buildings.The project in general terms also will spread and promote the PCs' awareness related to the EU policies referred to Sustainable and Energy Efficient Buildings and to enhance the approach towards EU best practices, with specific reference to the « 20-20-20 targets, NZEB, etc.».