Maastricht University MUNDO wins EU-tender for project in Malaysia

MUNDO, the Maastricht University Centre for International Cooperation in Academic Development, is going to carry out a EU project in Malaysia, in partnership with Nottingham University Malaysia Campus (UNMC). Through academic modules, networking between Malaysian and European scientists, seminars for businesses and government, and a (partly virtual) EU information centre, Europe is put on the map. For this purpose, the European Commission provides a subsidy of six thousand Euros. The project kicked off last week in Malaysia.

Europe is an important world power, but in South East Asia it has been in the shadow of Japan, China and the United States. The truth is, little is known about Europe. Therefore, the EU wants to raise Europe’s profile in South East Asia, starting in Malaysia. According to the UNMC and MUNDO’s project proposal, the starting point is to train students, namely those studying at Malaysian top universities, since once they graduate they’ll play a leading role in the development and economic growth of the country.

In this project, European academics will develop modules on European studies, European law, economics, media culture and history. At the same time, they’ll build a relationship with their Malaysian counterparts. In addition to modules and a European-Malaysian academic network, there will be seminars for businesses and the government, and a blueprint for setting up a European knowledge centre in Malaysia will be prepared. For this project, UM employees have 28 months of work ahead of them. A conference on European-Malaysian academic partnership has also been planned to take place in Maastricht in 2012.

Nottingham University has had, since 2000, a campus in Malaysia (UNMC) which has the same formal status as Malaysian universities. As a European-Malaysian institution, UNMC was particularly suited to develop a proposal aimed at raising Europe’s profile in Malaysia. UNMC wanted to collaborate with MUNDO due to UM’s reputation as a “European university” and also because of its expertise and experience in similar projects in Asia through MUNDO.

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