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.

In the last two decades, and particularly since the onset of the global financial crisis, providing innovation-oriented knowledge has become a priority at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to address the widespread challenges of high unemployment towards smart and inclusive growth.At the global level, Asia is undergoing rapid changes and integrating into fast-evolving networks but growth is severely uneven, with extremely diverse trajectories in societal and economic development. The socio-economic landscape of the PCs targeted by Hub4Growth (Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal and Mongolia) shows countries with an urgent need for action at university level to increase innovation related capabilities and link more effectively knowledge produced with market opportunities, therefore promoting socio-economic integration in the coming years.Within this framework, Hub4Growth aims at boosting target PC HEIs’ capacities for entrepreneurship opportunities and structures towards economic development and employability. The project, in line with regional and institutional priorities of the participating PC HEIs, will promote good practices for setting business interfaces in universities, enhance human resources’ capacities, provide for coherent information and communication strategies amongst the universities and within the local business environment. It will also give necessary strategic input for the creation of long-term partnerships and collaborative innovation-related initiatives with enterprises.

Based on the model of the European Economic Community, the ten countries of Southeast Asia making up ASEAN signed an agreement in November 2015 opening the way for the creation of an ASEAN community. The ambition of the countries of ASEAN is to develop a common market through the free flow of persons, goods and investment capital. However the development gap and quality of higher education and research among the ten member countries is still very evident. In this context it appears necessary to reinforce the research and innovation policy in Cambodia.Since the 2000s, Cambodia’s universities have been developing research projects and joint degree programs with European countries. However, the universities must now take on new challenges relating to building their institutional capacity in the areas of governance and quality control. Economic development and training of the future generations requires the modernizing of university structures.The project proposes to build capacity in partner institutions in the fields of research and innovation in the humanities, as well as, more broadly, to impact the operation of Cambodian higher education systems and to develop a ‘research culture’. Based on the competencies of partners and advanced university education, the project will offer training sessions and workshops for university faculties and students. These training sessions will deal with such crucial know-how and knowledge fields as control quality policy, human resources, writing project drafts, bibliographic research, and intellectual property and developing international partnerships.In tandem with training activities and with a precise focus on the human and material needs, an inter-university team of researchers will be established

CIRCULAR seeks to boost the social innovation ecosystem in Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos by bringing together and reinforcing the links between Teaching, Research, Innovation and Society in order to collaboratively design and test innovative solutions to mitigate waste management problems, promote circular economy approaches and improve the quality of life of local communities.It will pursue the following specific objectives:- Design a new collaborative model for reinforcing HEIs’ third mission and for enhancing effective and successful Knowledge Square cooperation for social innovation with a specific focus on the topic of circular economy. - Enhance community-based participatory research and citizen science at the same time promoting a new pedagogical framework for embedding community engagement actions as part of Higher Education study programmes. - Set-up Living Labs as open innovation ecosystems that integrate education, research, development and innovation, and regional development to help trigger the adoption of green and more sustainable practices and a more efficient use of resources.- Build the capacities of academics to design, organise and implement collaborative social innovation programmes that promote students’ active citizenship and simultaneously contribute to solve everyday sustainability and climate-change problems.- Build the capacities of researchers on new methodologies and updated strategies to conduct community-based research activities on the topic of circular economy and waste management.- Empower students and young people to become socially-engaged, climate-conscious and active citizens and raise the awareness of students, young people and members of local communities on the topic of circular economy and sustainable development, and promote alternative consumption habits and waste management practices underpinned by knowledge, research and innovation generated by Higher Education Institutions.