With the support of 3 European HEI, F-STEM project aims at building the capacity of 4 major public universities in Cambodia in order to create a new generation of food chain entrepreneurs, with a strong emphasis on safety, quality and sustainability.The food processing industry in Cambodia is very limited and the Cambodian market is dominated by imported food from neighboring countries. The local food processing market is run by family-based informal micro enterprises with lack of entrepreneurship skills and financial access, unadapted infrastructure and limited quality, safety or environmental concern.Our goals : Cambodian companies in the Agri-Food sector are able to provide goods on local and international market complying with quality and safety standards;The number of stakeholders in the agri-food sector is increased, with a focus on micro and small companiesMain outcomes of the project: E-learning courses dedicated to the Agri-Food chain are developed at bachelor, engineering and master levels and included in the curricula of the Cambodian partner Universities. These courses are focused on entrepreneurship, product development, factory design, sustainable processing, supply chain management...Challenges are organized in partnership with the private sector and selected teams receive technical support (Agri-Food Labs) and trainings in entrepreneurship;A specialization in Food Industry is developed in a Master program in Entrepreneurship and Project Management;A capacity building program is developed on the management of analytical laboratories for food safety controlImpactsThe local economy is driven by the development of innovative and sustainable agricultural and food processing solutions addressing nutrition issues with strong social, health and economical impact. Consumers are proud of and buy more Cambodian processed food and the international image of Cambodian agriculture and processed food is improved.

Like other countries, Cambodia has undertaken a transition towards sustainable development as defined in its National Environment Strategy and Action Plan. Yet, it is recognized that the transition to a green economy will induce significant changes in the job market. The goal of GREENCAP is to address the question of HEI adaptation to such job market evolution towards green jobs. It, therefore, aims to develop student’s employability in the field of green business, through the exchange of good practices between 3 EU universities and 4 Cambodian partner universities. The key factor of success for this project lies in the multi-stakeholder cooperation. To this end, GREENCAP set up forums and events aiming at creating space for a dialogue between Cambodian stakeholders concerned with those topics – Universities, the wider economic society (enterprises, NGO, cities…), and ministry. These spaces for dialogue will be held at three levels. First, at the National level, it will come through the implementation of a professional committee and the organization of an annual green conference involving various stakeholders. It gives the opportunity to share knowledge and experiences in the field of green business which will facilitate to formulate recommendations for teaching, research and partnership opportunities. Second, at the local level, GREENCAP aims to improve green job market matching opportunity with the organization job fairs, career centers, and the creation of digital jobs/internships platform. Third, at the institutional level, the outcomes of upper level will help to develop green business modules into HEI curricula. Staffs from the EU will also provide support to partner staff, through trainings, for greening the curriculum putting special focus on learning and teaching tools, methodologies and pedagogical.

The SWIFTS project aims to develop innovative methods for combining big data, derived from satellite Earth observation, and hydrodynamic simulations to improve flood inundation modelling at local to regional scales. The project focuses on urban and peri-urban areas and relies on the advanced exploitation of SAR, optical and topography data to characterise complex inundation flows. The main motivation is to simultaneously improve observed and simulated products via advanced machine learning and data assimilation methods in order to reduce related uncertainties. SWIFTS will therefore contribute to tackle three main scientific challenges: (i) to improve topography and model friction parameterization in hydrodynamic models via the advanced use of photogrammetry, interferometry and land-use classification on images mainly provided by the Pleiades and Sentinel satellite missions, (ii) to further develop SAR image classification algorithms, including machine learning and interferometry techniques, for flood extent mapping in urban and peri-urban areas as well as exclusion area mapping where the SAR data doesn’t enable floodwater detection, (iii) to further develop methods for assimilating flood extent maps into hydrodynamic model as front information, probabilistic and binary flood maps along with the exclusion layers. SWIFTS will rely on big data and high performance computing for machine learning, high resolution hydrodynamic modelling and ensemble-based data assimilation. To embrace both local and regional scales a traditional high-resolution hydrodynamic modelling approach will be complemented with a larger scale modelling approach including porosity concepts. To demonstrate and evaluate the developed approaches, the project will use as test cases a well-gauged French basin and a more poorly-gauged Cambodian basin where most part of the information will come from satellite Earth observation.

Nowadays in Europe, automation is reshaping the manufacturing tools to decrease the product cost withinenvironmental objective guidelines, customized production and valuable improvement of work conditions. At oppositeside, in least developed countries of Asia the labour market has mostly found employment in farming andmanufacturing is still using low cost manpower with poor qualification profile. For these Asian countries, the industrialstructure of the economy is still at its beginning and is facing many challenges with their education system. One of themis the lack of expert educated with corresponding skills to work on new technology of automation in processing andmanufacturing system. It is usual in the corresponding factories to find foreigners holding high qualified job profile asuniversities have not yet incorporated dedicated lab to provide the right skills to their students. Asean Factori 4.0 projectpropose to contribute to this challenge by the design of a set of industrial automation labs with a corresponding stafftraining program to initiate the foundation of center of excellence in Automation. In each institution, different kinds ofpedagogical process will be implemented and tested to create a network of competencies among our partner countriesfollowing their local needs and to permit cross learning approach during the project. Through the Industry 4.0 roadmap,the project is the first step to educate students to prepare a future generation of qualified workers able to implementadvanced manufacturing and processing machinery.

TCountries in the Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are experiencing rapid economic growth, and it is anticipated that GHG emissions in the region will increase rapidly. These countries are also among the most vulnerable countries when it comes to the effects of climate change.Simultaneously, a significant proportion of rural households lack access to modern energy services. In face of climate change, there is a strong need to support building sustainable energy pathways. Responses to the challenges present in the energy-poverty-environment-climate nexus call for multidisciplinary and situated knowledge and capacities. The project responded to the identified needs of the Mekong HEIs to:1.create sustainable energy engineering curricula, 2.improve sustainable energy knowledge, innovative pedagogical approaches, skills to foster research oriented learning,3.improve international, national and regional networks.The DEEM project aimed to integrate future and sustainability thinking, promote innovation and entrepreneurship, build public-private partnerships and include innovative teaching methods. Associate partners from the governmental and civil society sectors provided guidance on most relevant challenges and skills needed. The wider objective of the project was to ensure partner HEIs are able to respond to the capacity and employment needs of sustainable energy development in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The objective has a direct link to strengthening the integration of sustainable energy goals into national level energy policies, providing qualified energy experts into the local, national and regional labor markets and fostering greater collaboration between the public and private sectors and increasing regional level cooperation and mobility in research, entrepreneurship and innovation. The project directly influenced the modernisation and internationalisation of HEIs, and in the long term, contributed to sustainable energy policies, mitigation of climate GHG emissions and climate change, promoting energy security and better access to energy for all.Between 2016 and 2019 more than one thousand participants from Asian partner universities attended workshops, seminars and trainings organized by DEEM. This figure contains both staff from partner universities and advanced students working on their Master’s degrees, representing the next generation of teaching staff.New learning opportunities were created during the DEEM period in participating partner country institutions. National University of Laos launched its new Master’s Programme in Energy Management, built from the ground up using all new courses, and University of Yangon developed a Master’s Programme on Environmental and Water Management. Yangon Technological University designed a new diploma course on renewable energy and opened four PhD positions on Renewable Energy.In total, at Institute of Technology of Cambodia, 11 courses gained new substance and teaching approaches from DEEM. At Royal University of Phnom Penh, the project management was comprehensively overhauled, and 8 other courses benefited from updated teaching approaches. Yangon Technological University updated the content of 6 courses, and University of Yangon updated its course on environmental studies and planned to update all undergraduate courses in physics during 2020.During the project period, a total of 178 mobilities were undertaken, and various MOUs were signed strengthening and facilitating collaboration and networking between HEIs in the Mekong region as well as with universities in Europe. Seven stakeholder events were held to connect DEEM activities to the society at large, linking research and innovation processes to private sector development, NGO activities and government policy.