The most important challenges facing the Laotion universities is to set up appropriate structures (IROs) and harmonise internationalisation practices as proposed by the Ministry of Eucation and Sport of the People Democratic Republi of Laos. This harmonisation should include the sharing of basic and current practices, long established already in countries belonging to the European Higher Education Area, which could facilitate the exchange of students and academic staff, the development of joint projects or other international activities. Also the project general objective aims at increasing the academic quality and research activities of universities in the PDR of Laos through the development of internationalisation capacities. The specific objectives are: -To consolidate Internationalisation structure, & build human capacities of HEIs by means of targeted training programmes in 5 HEIs;- To accompany the governance reforms of MoEs and enhance international networking through strategic actions in key areas of the Laos higher education system.The OPEN project will achieve the above-mentioned general and specific objectives by achieving the concrete following outputs: 1. Increased cooperation and sharing of good practices via the needs analysis and Institutional Building. 2. Strengthening of Internationalisation of higher education system through the promotion of HEIs governance reforms. 3. Enhancement of managerial and administrative staff capacities in dealing with internationalisation issues.4. Establishment of a National Network. 5. Increase public awareness and understanding of Internationalisation.

"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."