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 .

In the last twenty-thirty years, quality assurance (QA) has emerged as an essential factor for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to facilitate comparability and readability of academic achievements and degrees, enhanced cooperation and mobility. In Europe, QA is embedded in the Bologna Process, which is seen as a good practice to follow in many regions willing to improve performance in this domain.Indeed, as a crucial element to an internationally competitive HE, QA is of most importance for countries immersed in HE reform and wishing to adapt and conform to global/regional trends. This would be the case of Cambodia, which thanks to enormous efforts has turned in the last two decades from one of the world’s poorest countries to a lower middle-income country today. Cambodia has formulated an ambitious policy for HE reform, the HE Vision 2030, and QA is an integral part of the same. Main strategies of the Policy include ensuring that HEIs develop QA systems/specific units to meet national accreditation standards and allow full participation in the global system of quality-assured HE. Action lines to implement the abovementioned objective imply establishing internal QA mechanisms, fostering capacities & skills, as well as infrastructures, and conducting regular internal self-assessment of the management and programmes, amongst others.Within this framework, SICA proposes a sound scheme of activities and actions to contribute to Cambodian Higher Education Vision 2030 through the improvement of internal Quality Assurance in Cambodian HEIs. Capacity building for professional development; exchange of good practices EU-Cambodia; set-up of internal QA units; and embedding quality assurance processes are some of the priority lines of the project.

"The main goal of the ENGAGE project is to promote and support students’ engagement within the Higher Education System (HES) in three Partner Countries located in Southeast Asia: Cambodia (KH), Lao PDR (LA), and Myanmar (MM). The project idea originates from the observation of the existing gaps in the HES of these countries for what concerns: the inclusion of students in designing and creating class activities; the possibility to express their own ‘voice’ within the governance institutions of the university and to organize extra-curricular activities through student associations; the engagement with the broader context of the social community at large. ENGAGE builds on and expands the previous experiences of the CHINLONE and TOOLKIT projects (see paragraph D.3) including part of the ENGAGE consortium. Specifically, the ENGAGE project intends to address the problem of student engagement from three different perspectives, using three distinct platforms which constitutes the main levels of action for the students: classroom, campus and community. CLASSROOM ENGAGEMENT aims at addressing the problem of students' inclusion within the process of designing and managing of learning and teaching activities, transforming them from ‘passive subjects’ to ‘active agents’ of the ""Learning and Teaching"" (L&T) process. CAMPUS ENGAGEMENT aims at addressing the problem of student participation in the governance and decision-making process of the universities. The problem of student engagement in the university institutions and organizations has emerged as a crucial point in the preliminary need analysis for the three Partner Countries. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT aims at addressing the problem of transforming the student engagement and participation on-campus into practices of community development and active citizenship in the social environment at large."

The primary goal of NEXUS project is to enhance research capacities of HEIs in the southeast Asian region, by strengthening relationships between Education, Research and Innovation in GIS, SID and remote sensing, for applications that are related to environment, agricultures and natural hazards. The project will develop a common nexus between various actors of research and innovation (HEIs, research centers, spin-off companies) in three neighboring countries: Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar where specific strategy for innovation transfer are convergent with EU developments in accordance with Europe 2020 strategy and Smart specialization initiatives.The goal was to generate synergies that would boost R&D growth and subsequently job opportunities and business creation through GIS/RS initiatives. The project expected to improve the transfer of innovation from universities to local and regional enterprises, enhancing the potential for social innovation through generating new applied research with spatial data. The main objectives of NEXUS were to:• Develop conceptual framework and structure for smart specialization and innovation in GIS/remote sensing in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries• Support the research capacity of partner institutions in emerging topics that contribute to university study programs• Design strategy for imparting ‘hand-on’ practical training of delivering applied research outputs and working with identified business companies• Create innovation network and hub that enhances the use of GIS/remote sensing for societal uses.Practical studies were made to understand the gap in technology transfer in the SEA HEIs. NEXUS will organize intensive technical trainings for HEI teachers and researchers in defined areas. Physically six new GIS/remote sensing labs were set up or reinforced. Exemplary seminars in spin-offs with core activities related to RS/GIS and workshops with roundtable discussions between academia, business and governments were held in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar. A hackathon in third year served to bring together companies and students. 7 awards were distributed among best teams. Due to Covid-19 situation only Thai partners were able to participate.