Short Initiatives and TEAM

Short Initiatives (SI) and TEAM projects aim to explore, build and deepen balanced academic partnerships focusing on a specific sustainable development challenge hereby strengthening partner HE&SIs' research and educational capacities and performance and creating the conditions for uptake of new and relevant knowledge, applications and/or services by academic, civil society, private and public actors. Short Initiatives (SI) and TEAM projects aim to explore, build and deepen balanced academic partnerships focusing on a specific sustainable development challenge. Through partnerships between teams of researchers/academics/lecturers/specialists affiliated with Higher Education and Science Institutions (HE&SIs) in Flanders and the 17 VLIR-UOS partner countries, the projects seek to strengthen the research and educational capacities and performance of the HE&SIs and create improved conditions for uptake of new and relevant knowledge, applications and/or services by academic, civil society, private and public actors. As such, the projects enable HE&SIs to operate as drivers of change contributing to Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. To support these knowledge-driven partnerships, VLIR-UOS launches competitive calls for two complementary types of projects, namely Short Initiatives and TEAM projects. The Short Initiatives are short-term projects (max 2 year) with a limited budget, are easy access and often of an explorative nature. TEAM projects are mid-term projects (max. 5 years), move a step further with a stronger focus on capacity building, often involving PhD trainings, and structural research/educational collaboration with units in one or more partner institutions. SI and TEAM projects are incentivized to adopt a multistakeholder and/or interinstitutional set-up which may involve universities as well as university colleges on Flemish side given their diverse but often complementary roles in higher education. In general, SI and TEAM projects are expected to structure as well as monitor their activities and deliverables around six core domains reflecting the key components of higher education institutional capacity: (i) education programmes and methods, (ii) research programmes and methods, (iii) individual capacity strengthening, (iv) outreach and policy support, (v) networks and partnerships, and (vi) systems, policies and infrastructure.