SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES

1. SATU – 2021 Joint Research Scheme (JRS) Call for Proposals

The 2021 SATU Joint Research Scheme (JRS) is now calling for research proposals from principal investigators from member universities. We hope that you will join us in enhancing our regional collaborations and help us achieve a more fruitful fact-finding future.

JRS was launched by SATU Presidents’ Forum in 2012 as a matching platform for scholars from all SATU member universities to establish international research collaborations. JRS has been receiving more and more attention over the years. The number of matched projects has grown to 61 in 2019 and even 174 in 2020. We believe the JRS has served an important role in promoting collaborations among our member universities.

If you have any research proposals and would like to look for like-minded collaborator(s) to work with, all you need to do is to complete the “PI Proposal Submission form” at 2021 SATU JRS by 29 March 2021, and we will call for co-investigators for your project(s). The submission process is short and simple, and will take less than 10 minutes to complete.

Further details and the proposal submission form can be found in the official webpage of 2021 SATU JRS. The proposal submission deadline is 29 March, 2021

For enquiries, please contact Ms. Charlotte Li at [email protected]

2. 1st ASEF Higher Education Innovation Laboratory

We would like to share the information from our partner, Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), for the 1st ASEF Higher Education Innovation Laboratory (ASEFInnoLab1), which will take place between 25 March – 13 May 2021.

Focusing on “Universities’ Role in AI Innovation Ecosystems” the project will explore the role of universities in national and regional innovation ecosystems in the age of artificial intelligence and apply a design thinking approach to assist participants in building strategies to work with businesses, policy makers and international partners in these ecosystems. The project is co-organised by Fudan University, and in partnership with the Association of the Pacific Rim Universities (APRU).

ASEFInnoLab1 is an 8-week long, free of charge, online learning and networking experience for university managers, administrators and academics in charge of AI related initiatives. The Open Call for Applications for university managers, administrators and academics is open until Friday, 12 March 2021 (https://bit.ly/3uyRRG8).

3. The 4th International Conference on Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology
(ICMEN 2021) Online Conference

ICMEN 2021 will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during 3-4 April 2021. The aim as well as objective of ICMEN 2021 is to present the latest research and results of scientists related to Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology topics. This conference provides opportunities for the delegates to exchange new ideas, to establish business or research relations as well as to find global partners for future collaborations. We hope that the conference results will lead to significant contributions to the core technology knowledge exchanges in these up-to-date scientific fields.

Important Dates:

  • Abstract/Full Paper Submission: 2 Dec 2020 – 25 March 2021
  • Registration Deadline: 25th March 2021
    • Registration fee is USD 250 (students) and USD 300 (regular)

For more information, visit their website at https://www.icteo.net/icmen.

4. BLAZE – Step Into the Future at the Grand Finals Pitch!

Take a peek into the most innovative ideas & technologies that will change the world as we know it.

Organised by the SMU Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE), the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition (LKYGBPC) is Asia’s leading university start-up competition which brings the brightest minds from the world’s most entrepreneurial universities to come together to address the challenges of the 21st century.

From over 850 global submissions across 60 countries, 8 grand finalists will compete for top prizes at the grand finals, BLAZE on 19 March, to the theme of ‘Reimagine Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Cities’.

Witness the Revolution! Visit their website to register: https://www.gevme.com/lkygbpc

5. Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)  Webinars

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is committed to connecting with partners and friends to exchange knowledge, share experience, and build collaborations. They are pleased to present the following events which may be of interest to the members of the university:

Arts & Humanities Conversations at CUHK – Episode 3: Why Inequalities in Film & Technology Matter

  • Date: 13 March 2021
  • Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm (HK time)
  • Speakers: Prof. Elmo Gonzaga, Department of Cultural & Religious Studies & Prof. Ronald Darvin, Department of English, CUHK
  • Moderator: Prof. Prem Phyak, Department of English, CUHK
  • Medium: Zoom (English)

The talk looks at how inequality can be studied in different ways between the two disciplines of Cinema Studies and Applied Linguistics.

Details and registration here.

Policy Research@HKIAPS COVID-19 Webinar Series: Behavioural Responses to COVID-19: The Role of Institutions & Identity

  • Date: 22 March 2021
  • Time: 11:00am-12:15pm (HK time)
  • Speakers: Prof. Ying-yi Hong, Department of Management & Dr. Hongchuan Shen, Department of Decision Sciences & Managerial Economics, CUHK
  • Discussant: Prof. Tian Xie, College of Business, Shanghai University of Finance & Economics
  • Moderator: Prof. Fanny Cheung, Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, CUHK
  • Medium: Zoom (English)

The speakers will share their views on the role of institutions and identity in shaping the behavioural responses to COVID-19, and explore specifically the influence of economic, social, and political factors on such behavioural responses and the links between national identification and engagement in disease-preventive behaviours in China and the US.

Details and registration here.

Agrobiotechnology Talk Series – 5: Insects & Other Arthropods in Agriculture: Field Survey, Biotechnology & Genomics

  • Date: 30 March 2021
  • Time: 6:00pm-7:30pm (HK time)
  • Speakers: Prof. Jerome Hui, School of Life Sciences, CUHK
  • Host: Prof. Hon Ming Lam, School of Life Sciences, CUHK
  • Medium: Zoom (English)

In this talk, the speaker will share his laboratory studies and research on insect genetics and agricultural genomics to shed light on new biotechnological applications and new models in agriculture.

Details and registration here.

 

SCHOLARSHIPS AND EXCHANGE PROGRAMS

1. APRU Virtual Student Exchange Program Summer Session 2021

The APRU Virtual Student Exchange (VSE) program provides opportunities for international student exchange to address challenges presented by the current global pandemic and embrace opportunities to learn from world-class teaching through technology.

The VSE program has so far drawn participation from 26 APRU members and have offered 229 academic courses online and over 1,100 applications for course enrolment since launch in August 2020. A wide variety of virtual co-curricular programs offer cultural, leadership, career, and social activities beyond the academic courses to enrich the international virtual experience.

We would now like to invite APRU member universities to join the VSE for summer of 2021. Members could participate by one or more of the following means:
Offer online academic courses (synchronous/asynchronous/mixed mode)
Allow home students to take academic courses from other participating universities
Offer virtual co-curricular programs that would be open to students from across APRU

2. KNB Scholarship Program: Study at ITB (Master/Doctoral Program)

We are happy to inform you about the KNB Scholarship Program, offered by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia, for applicants from developing nations to pursue a Master’s / Doctoral Degree program in Indonesia for the 2021 intake.

Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) has been one of the university partners of the scholarship program and is looking forward to receiving applications. The application deadline is May 4, 2021. Prospective applicants should go to the KNB Scholarship Program website at http://knb.kemdikbud.go.id/ to understand more about the program and how to apply for the scholarship.

3. Researcher and Research Student Enrichment Program (R2SEP)

ITS is proudly inviting all global academicians to together maintain the quality of education during these challenging times. After releasing Guest Lecture Series and Fun Bahasa Indonesia and Cultural Course (FBICC), ITS is again proudly inviting all global academicians to one of ITS’s flagship e-programs, Researcher and Research Student Enrichment Program (R2SEP).

Receiving global attention in 2020 since being converted into an e-program open for global citizens, the 2021 R2SEP offers four (4) streams for participants to explore best research practice in Hard Engineering, Soft Engineering, Sciences, and Architecture, Design, & Social Sciences. Also, there will be eight (8) topics for each stream to dig your understanding on research:

  • Expectations From Being a Postgraduate Student
  • Finding Research Idea
  • Literature Review: Latest Tools and Methods
  • Common Research Methodology in Your Field
  • Research Management Skills
  • Getting Published
  • Presentation Skills
  • Life Strategy as a Researcher

The program is run every Thursday afternoon/evening (GMT+7) fortnightly for each stream.

Register yourself through http://bit.ly/Registration_R2SEP2021.

The registration is open every Friday to Wednesday. Participants can also do a one-time registration in which they can select individual events they are interested in. Zoom link will be sent to the registrants prior to the event.

We also provide a certificate of participation for international students who have attended at least 60% of the event (or 5 meetings).

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact Ms. Nastiti and Ms. Nabila at [email protected]

4. ERC Starting Grant Call 2021

Are you a talented early-career scientist who has already produced excellent supervised work, is ready to work independently and shows potential to be a research leader? The ERC Starting Grant could be for you.
Researchers of any nationality with 2-7 years of experience since completion of PhD (Extensions are possible under certain circumstances — see the latest ERC Work Programme), a scientific track record showing great promise and an excellent research proposal.

Criteria

  • Applications can be made in any field of research
  • The ERC’s grants operate on a ‘bottom-up’ basis without predetermined priorities.

Location

  • Research must be conducted in a public or private research organisation (known as a Host Institution/HI). It could be the HI where the applicant already works, or any other HI located in one of the EU Member States or Associated Countries

Host Institution

  • Applications for an ERC grant must be submitted by a single Principal Investigator (PI) in conjunction with and on behalf of their Host Institution, called the applicant legal entity.
  • Grants are awarded to the Host Institution with the explicit commitment that this institution offers appropriate conditions for the Principal Investigator independently to direct the research and manage its funding for the duration of the project.
  • Any type of legal entity, including universities, research centres and undertakings can host the PI and his/her team. Legally the host institution must be based in one of the EU Member States, or one of the associated countries.
  • The PI does not necessarily need to be working at the host institution at the time when the proposal is submitted. However, a mutual agreement and the host institution’s commitment on how the relationship will be established are necessary, should the proposal be successful.

Team

  • ERC grants support projects carried out by an individual researcher who can employ researchers of any nationality as team members. It is also possible to have one or more team members located in a non-European country.
  • Vacancies for team members interested in joining an ERC led research project, can be published on the Euraxess-Jobs portal.
  • Initiatives, under the form of ‘Implementing Arrangements’, exist for ERC-funded teams in Europe to host non-European talented scientists. Find out more about the agreements.

UK’s participation in Horizon Europe

  • The UK is expected to soon become an associated country to the EU’s R&I Framework Programme Horizon Europe. The UK will therefore have the same rights and obligations as other countries associated to the Programme.

Starting Grants may be awarded up to € 1.5 million for a period of 5 years. (pro rata for projects of shorter duration). However, an additional € 1 million can be made available to cover eligible “start-up” costs for researchers moving from a third country to the EU or an associated country and/or the purchase of major equipment and/or access to large facilities and/or other major experimental and field work costs.

An ERC grant can cover up to 100% of the total eligible direct costs of the research plus a contribution of 25% of the total eligible costs towards indirect costs.

How to apply?

  • ERC grant applications can only be submitted in response to a Call for Proposals.
  • The ERC has yearly calls for proposals covering all scientific fields.
  • For an ERC grant application to be complete, it needs to include the administrative forms, the research proposal and the supplementary documents. The completed proposal should be submitted by the specified closing date.
  • Calls are published on the pages of the European Commission’s Funding and Tenders Portal and in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Step-by-step

  • Find out which ERC grant and which call is suitable for you.
    • Identify the host institution and team members you would like to work with. (see also the online research partner search services)
    • Contact the National Contact Point (NCP) in your country for support.
  • Read the call documents carefully.
    • Contact the host institution and gather all the details you need for the application.
    • Start writing your proposal. Allow time for other people to review your draft. Your NCP, peers and other scientists can all give you helpful support and feedback.
    • Familiarise yourself with the EU submission service. This is the online system through which proposals must be submitted. (see also the online guide to using the proposal submission service and the H2020 Online manual.
    • Submit your proposal as early as possible. Deadlines cannot be changed under any circumstances. You can update your submitted proposal any time before the deadline by simply submitting a new version, which will overwrite the old one.
    • You will get an ‘acknowledgement of receipt’ by e-mail for each submission.

After the deadline:

  • The ERC will check whether your proposal meets the call’s eligibility criteria.
  • External experts will evaluate all the eligible proposals.
  • You will receive further information as your proposal progresses through the evaluation. For more information we invite you to consult the timeframe for the current call.
  • See ‘Ongoing evaluations’ for the feedback timetables for calls.

Proposals are evaluated by selected international peer reviewers who evaluate proposals on the basis of excellence as the sole criterion. It will be applied to the evaluation of both the research project and the Principal Investigator in conjunction.

Peer reviewers are in charge of assessing and scoring the proposals. Those who pass the quality threshold are ranked. Depending on the call budget available, a budgetary cut-off applies to the ranking list and only the highest ranked proposals are offered an ERC grant until the call’s budget has been used.

For each call there are 25 panels, each covering a sub-section of one of three domains:

Social sciences and Humanities (SH)
Life sciences (LS)
Physical and Engineering Sciences (PE)
Each ERC panel consists of a chairman and 10-16 members. The Panel Chair and the Panel Members are selected by the ERC Scientific Council on the basis of their scientific reputation.

In addition to the Panel Members (who act as “generalists”), the ERC evaluations rely on input from remote experts external to the panel, called referees. They are scientists and scholars who bring in the necessary specialised expertise.

Before the deadline of a call, the names of the Panel Chairs are published on the ERC website. Similarly, the names of Panel ¨Members are published, however, after the evaluation process is concluded.

5. Jeonbuk National University, Korea Admission for ASEAN Faculty Members, Fall Semester 2021

Jeonbuk National University is delighted to announce that it is accepting applications for the Graduate School Doctoral Degree Course for ASEAN Faculty Members in Fall semester, 2021.

The HEAT program is a scholarship opportunity for ASEAN Faculty members. In this regard, JBNU is inviting interested faculty members from its partner universities.

HEAT program scholarships include tuition waiver, living expenses, airfare support, among others. The application period is from March 15 to March 26. For details, please check their website at https://www.jbnu.ac.kr/eng/?menuID=426&mode=view&no=190

6. ASEAN Student Internship Program at World Expo 2020

We would like to inform you of an internship opportunity for your students presented to us by the ASEAN Secretariat as a part of their Expo 2020 experience. The ASEAN Secretariat has requested that the AUN Secretariat seek your kind cooperation to promote this internship opportunity to your students.

The Expo, held in Dubai from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022, is the largest exhibition event ever to be staged in the Arab world and is set to welcome 190 participating countries plus international organisations. It aims to attract 25 million visitors from across the globe within six months, under the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.”

The internship, lasting 1-2 weeks, will see students helping ASEAN tell its story to the people of the world. They will also get a chance to see, learn, and interact with their counterparts from other countries of the world. Please note that students will be expected to bear the cost of travel to and from Dubai as well as living expenses. The estimated start date for this internship will be on 1 October 2021 depending on which batch the student is a part of.

More information on this program including eligibility requirements, accommodation, duties and responsibilities, benefits, schedules, and health safety precautions are attached in the following attachments:

Letter to AUN Member Universities
Application Guideline
Terms of Reference
Frequently Asked Questions

The deadline for applications is 22 March 2021. Should you have any questions, please feel free to email the following contact persons:

Mr. Buranond ([email protected]), Ms. Supatcha ([email protected]), Mr. Chawanvit ([email protected]), Ms. Naparat ([email protected])

Thank you.