The aim of the project is to promote equity and access to higher education in Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines through the use of inclusive instructional design (ID) and learning analytics (LA) in online and blended learning, especially in the context of Open and Distance Learning (ODL). The objectives are to build capacity in inclusive ID and LA, improve students’ learning engagement, active learning and study skills with the help of ID and LA based interventions, improve pedagogical and technical accessibility of digital learning materials, and use LA for more effective, personalised support for distance learners.In all three Partner countries, improving access to quality higher education is a priority. ODL is seen as a viable way of doing this, as it gives access to students with diverse backgrounds, for instance students in remote areas, mature age students and working students. However, access is only the starting point: the students also need to be able to successfully complete their studies. To ensure better equity and student retention, issues such as pedagogical and technical inclusion, accessible digital materials, and personalised support must be considered. In the project, inclusive instructional design methods and learning analytics solutions are utilised to address these issues.Pilot interventions addressing specific local needs related to the project scope are developed at each Partner HEI. This is supported by authentic capacity building activities and ongoing online support throughout the design, development, implementation and evaluation of the pilots. The outcomes of the project will be tried and tested recommendations and guidelines for using inclusive ID and LA for promoting equity and access to higher education. The results will be disseminated both regionally and more widely in the ASEAN region through multiple channels, including an international conference and a Handbook which will be published online with a Creative Commons license.

The objective of the Capacity Building for Legal and Social Advancement in the Philippines or “CALESA” is to help remedy the following interdependent problems in Philippine legal education:1. The dearth of academic research in law schools.2. The inability of professors and students to access the source materials of their own civil law tradition, and developments in other civil law traditions due to weak multilingual interest and skills.3. Inability of the legal profession to contribute significant academic (as opposed to professional) expertise to the modernization of outdated legal codes, the protection of human rights and the rule of law, and advancement of ASEAN integration, despite their critical and/or geo-strategic importance.At the root of these problems is a systemic defect in Philippine legal education – the lack of programs in law schools that are focused on developing academic expertise and generating research. Virtually all of the country’s 108 law schools are professional. This means that they are geared towards producing legal practitioners. This creates a knowledge deficit that prevents the legal profession from more effectively combining law and policy to deal with some of the most pressing needs of society.Upon CALESA’s completion, it is envisioned that the Philippines’ leading law schools will adopt curricular innovations that are focused on research, multilingualism, human rights and the rule of law, regional integration and comparative law in a manner that is consistent with the Bologna process in order to facilitate portability with EU universities. Because these institutions are among the thought leaders in the field of legal education, the expectation is to initiate a cascade effect whose benefits will in time reach the other law schools, the Judiciary, the legal profession, the legal system, and Philippine society.

Interconnections between ecological and societal systems facilitate compounding impacts of climate change, environmental plastic pollution and proliferation of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on the health of people, animals and ecosystems on a planetary scale. Current knowledge on interactions between these three crises in the Earth’s natural systems and their impact on health is highly restricted. TULIP will apply a transdisciplinary socio-ecological systems thinking approach, robust environmental science methods, epidemiology, modelling, sampling design and state-of-the-art molecular tools to generate scientific evidence on plastic-AMR interactions. It will describe spatio-temporal dynamics and patterns of plastic-associated AMR under a changing climate and the compounding health and ecological impacts. It will employ the methodology of intervention and social sciences to explore social driving factors and current policies and design and evaluate community-based interventions and nature-based solutions. TULIP will convert created evidence to modelling-based decision-supporting tools that approximate co-benefits to human and ecosystem health, indicators and environmental policy recommendations highlighting triple-win solutions and foster the science-policy translation using an integrated knowledge translation framework. Aiming to ignite a lasting societal change toward health-promoting environments, TULIP will engage communities, citizen scientists, policymakers and experts from multiple sectors in research, co-design, co-implementation, communication and dissemination processes. TULIP will focus on aquatic environments as they create a milieu for interactions, transport pathways and exposure interface and showcase its approach in the Philippines and Italy and translate to a pan-European scale.

The role of a modern University in the society is dramatically changed due to economic, social and, as a matter of fact, technological revolutions we are living in. In contrast to a traditional Humbolt University model, Universities across the globe become knowledge service providers to the economy and society at large. In this context, the latest explosion of Massive Open Online educational services/Courses (MOOCs, 2012 was declared as a Year of MOOCs, NYT) is confirming the general trend and opens new avenues for linking Universities and their external customers via powerful ICT means. When Europe is one of the global leaders in MOOC technologies, this innovation is still to come to Southeast Asia and the mission of the COMPETEN-SEA project is to enable the transfer of European experiences to the local partner Universities. The overall project aim is to make a significant contribution towards strengthening relations between higher education systems in Southeast Asia and wider economic and social environment by building organizational, pedagogical and technical capacities in local Universities to design, develop, market and deliver MOOCs for various economic and social problems. The project will implement the following activities:- Regional MOOC SWOT analysis and feasibility study to identify best strategies for educational outreach using MOOCs- Intensive MOOC Capacity Building programme aimed at building local capacities to develop MOOCs addressing local educational needs and deliver them to target users- Development and evaluation of the system of MOOCs addressing urgent socio-economic development needs - Dissemination and awareness raising campaign addressing academic communities in the region, as well as other key stakeholders: policy makers, potential users of MOOCs (e.g. public bodies, NGOs, businesses, etc.), general public. Importantly, the project will undertake efforts to integrate the regional MOOC specialists with the European MOOC movement.