The MS FSCC project brings five leading Southeast Asian higher education institutions in agriculture and life sciences from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia to build a joint master’s degree on the topic of Food Security and Climate Change. These HEIs have been working together within the Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC) since 1989 and have a concrete experience of exchanges in Science and Academic programmes but never reached the level of building a joint degree. The MS FSCC was designed on the model of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degrees in Europe. It aimed at responding to acute needs in the professional sector that developed recently, where each individual university may not have all the disciplinary resources to address such topics at the highest (postgraduate) level. This difficulty is generally increased when the professional targets of the learning objectives lead to multidisciplinary orientations of teaching and research. A consortium of universities sharing common learning objectives and organising the mobility of students according to their individual academic strengths was assumed to be in a better position than individual Universities to produce graduates relevant to the market needs. This is the case with Food Security and Climate Change to prepare graduates to work at implementing the commitments of the member countries at the last Paris Conference on Climate Change, while taking into consideration the challenges of food security linked with the recent implementation of the ASEAN integrated market. This corresponds to a new professional challenge in the area of agriculture in SE Asia. The UC has the necessary skills to address this challenge, but individually, none have all the skills needed to properly address the training needs in this domain. Building a joint degree and using mobility to get the best offer in the region may better address that new challenge rather than what they would do individually. Simultaneously with the development of the synopsis of joint MS FSCC programme was the challenge of offering a dual/double degree, an innovation that the UC had never done before. By building common rules to govern within the MS FSCC: exchange/mobility of students, mutual recognition of courses between pairs of Universities within the UC, organisation of summer schools to offer courses to accommodate all students, option to have one semester mobility in Europe to complement the local supply of courses, FSCC-wide quality assurance system recognised by each of the collaborating Universities, and joint evaluation of master thesis between academic teams, Departments, Faculties of the different co-graduating Universities, the UC has experimented agreements that lead to building other post graduate joint programmes, a major institutional innovation in the SE Asian academic world. Whereas building this joint degree was much inspired by the European experience of the Erasmus Mundus programme, it required several adaptations and innovative rules in the participating Universities’ academic systems. These adaptations took more time than initially expected as it had to be accepted in five Universities in parallel and in real practice, for real students, in a real joint programme, and not just in theory. These innovations have been clearly identified, and at least they have been addressed in the case of a first collaborative programme, run with three successive cohorts of students.

The adoption of Industry 4.0 by developed countries poses a significant threat to other countries and nations. It is expected that each country will face a number of challenges related to the skill level of its employees. Industry 4.0 will provide expertise in information technology, data analytics… in the industrial sectors. The result is a growing need for skilled employees trained in cross-cutting areas and capable of managing new processes and information systems. The aim of this project is to build Skills 4.0 THrough UniversitY and Entreprise Collaboration (SHYFTE) by analysing the gap between the skills acquired in HEIs and the skills required by industry 4.0, and develop a new model of emergent skills in line with the needs of the industry of the future. To provide a performant job market platform in Thailand, China and Malaysia. SHYFTE project will provide an emergent skill development strategy in both EU and Asia with main focus on four research domains: Industrial engineering and management, Software Engineering and Big data analytics, Wireless and Networks analytics, and Artificial Intelligence by incorporating the competencies of all partners to fill the skill gap in Asian partner countries. The overall aims of SHYFTE project are:- To support academic and administrative staff in Asian HEIs to design and implement new methodology and learning materials to enhance and improve the competences and skills related to Industry 4.0. That will enable HEIs organizations aligning their learning program strategy both to the requirements of the regional industry and the global labor market. - To build and strengthen links between HEIs and Industry 4.0, and promote the job market by minimizing the skills gap.- To build Skills 4.0 LABs or Learning centers of excellence in Asian Partner's HEIs to enable each of them to become the reference center in its country and disseminate the outcomes of the project nationally and regionally.

The project Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia (CRISEA) brings together Southeast Asian (SEA) and European researchers with 3 objectives. 1. Research. Our previous research shows that SEA is open to multiple forces that drive regional integration through competition for resources and legitimacy. In the current crisis of legitimacy for globalisation, SEA's competing regional integrations present challenges for its people and for ASEAN's framework-building project. We analyse these in sectorally-themed work packages on 'arenas of competition': the environment, the economy, the State, the identity of SEA's people, and the Region. Using an interdisciplinary micro-macro method of analysis, we ask in each case how ASEAN-led regional integration is – and is seen by SEA's people as – part of the problem or part of the solution. CRISEA engages with the work programme's concern with "what ‘region’ means to the peoples of these countries within and beyond the ASEAN context". Closely aligned with the 2015 Joint Communication on EU-ASEAN relations, it enhances the EU's understanding of "the Asia-Pacific as a strategic region for Europe". 2. Policy relevance. CRISEA's research programme was developed for its relevance to EU policy on ASEAN and its member states. Its dissemination strategy innovates by creating mechanisms for dialogue with a targeted audience of policy makers, stakeholders and the public in Brussels and SEA, using briefing sessions, workshops, press coverage, film, public lectures and policy briefs. 3. Networking and capacity building for the European Research Area. Leveraging existing networks of EU-SEA cooperation – the unique EFEO network of 10 field centres in SEA, the IDEAS and SEATIDE projects, EUROSEAS, ASEF – we reinforce the ERA through coordinated academic exchange, joint research and results delivery. Our consortium engages western European and ASEAN scholars with emerging expertise in southern and eastern Europe.

WANASEA is a joint project between European, Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian institutions. By promoting a better academic integration and international cooperation, WANASEA aims to improve the quality of higher education and enhance its relevance for society in the area of Water and related Natural Resources Management (WNRM). Along with the booming economy of the Greater Mekong Subregion, many concerns relate to growing pressures from industrial activities, agricultural use, growing population and consequences of climate change. This calls for appropriate mechanisms of WNRM in terms of energy supply, irrigation or habitat. To reach these objectives, our strategy is to strengthen international multidisciplinary research cooperation. Interactions between HEIs, and with non-academic stakeholders will be promoted, mainly through capacity-building and networking activities. Starting with an in-depth analysis of the main stakeholders and existing university courses related to WNRM, the project includes biannual trainings for HEI support staff and an annual ASEAN Water Platform joining researchers, students and professionals involved with WNRM. Additionally, intense networking activities, such as webinars, virtual debates, information sharing and dissemination of opportunities will insure long lasting effect in terms of research output and appropriate policy recommendations. Both students from EU and Asian partners will be offered opportunities to attend and to create links for future collaborations. Experts and professors from EU will provide Asian HEIs with recommendations for syllabus development, innovative research methodologies or e-learning activities. WANASEA will offer an organised framework dedicated to professional interactions between academic and non-academic stakeholders involved in WNRM, thus improving the quality of HEIs’ curricula and research capacities at regional level.

Asia is, by far, the continent which has registered the steepest growth in population and goods consumption in the last decades. It is a matter of fact that, however - similarly as other part of the World - the capability of the socio-economic system to address the need to dispose the corresponding generated waste is not as much rapid.The problem connected to the lack of dedicated professionals for solid waste management is pressing in many Asian countries and, in this sense, creating dedicated workforce and building knowledge by fostering specialization can be achieved only if specialised courses are offered at different educational levels and if targeted capacity building, governance models, educational and training programmes are conducted. New academic and TVET educational products (the latter to be addressed to informal workers as well) on sustainable solid waste management, health and environmental risks related to improper waste treatment, and business operation will encounter the needs of teachers and trainers, therefore indirectly of their students and trainees, educating them on the most critical areas of waste management. In this framework, the project will also provide them with the chance of a more concrete and practical experience in the Training Hubs to be established in during the SWAP Project.Therefore, the general aim of SWAP project is to contribute and support in building capacity at tertiary level as well as to support training addressed to the vulnerable group of informal waste practitioners. In this sense, the project has the purpose of improving entrepreneurship as well as the employability of university graduates of the HEIs from Southeast Asia in the sector of sustainable solid waste management, thanks to a close cooperation among all the actors of the “Quadruple-helix”. Thanks to this holistic structure, SWAP Project will pave the way to support relevant policies, providing with high quality educational products, strategies and tools.