The Board and member organizations are encouraged to conduct APQN projects by self-fundraising in order to enhance the capacity-building and promote the sustainability of APQN. The joint projects of APQN and member organizations to funding bodies are also encouraged to add value for the projects as the brand name of APQN. The projects should identify common areas of interest among APQN members and facilitate work on these areas with shared responsibilities from various organizations across the region. Project areas are dynamic in nature, depending on developments that take place in the quality assurance field.
Criteria for Identification of the Projects
The projects are expected to serve the common purposes of APQN – “enhancing the quality of higher education in the Asia-Pacific Region” and “committed to quality higher education”. Topics should be relevant to member countries/territories, and the outputs should benefit the Asia-Pacific Region or part of the Region. They should focus on precise topics rather than broad generalizations about quality assurance issues, such as workshop of evaluators’ capability, researches and activities on QA, etc. Project topics are either identified by an APQN member(s) or by the Board where the Board sees a need for APQN to explore a topic in more detail either alone or in cooperation with other networks. The Board can identify key projects, and apply funding from like World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), New Development Bank BRICS (NDB BRICS), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and Australian Agency for International Development (AusAid), etc. At the same time, the project is greatly encouraged to seek sponsorship, support and in-kind contributions from governments, agencies, networks, organizations, philanthropists and other relative stakeholders.
Project Group Composition
The project group members might be identified by the project group leader, based on expressions of interest and/or by specific invitation to potential contributors to the project. The diversity of the APQN members should be taken into account while constituting the project groups. The Board might advise the project group leader on this, if necessary.
Making a Proposal
Project proposals should be made through e-mail to the Secretariat. Proposals will be accepted from would-be group leaders, who should be either staff of an APQN member organization or belong to the extended network of resource persons of the organization who are involved in carrying out its quality assurance activities. In all cases, the proposal must have the formal approval and support of the Head of an APQN member organization.
Applications should therefore be made via the Board member or the head of an organization who will endorse it on behalf of the organization. While routing the proposals to APQN, the would-be group leader is expected to consider the relevance of the project to APQN membership and indicate its recommendations. The Board will consider the suggestions and applications and identify priority projects.
Format for Presentation of Project Proposal
- Objectives/Purpose
- Relevance to APQN Objectives/Activities
- Source of the Funding and Relevant Requirement by the Funding Provider
- Methodology/Process/Contents
- Expected Outputs
- Budget
- Timetable
- Project Team
Recommendation for the Potential Funding Provider
It is recommended to get funding from the local or international government, non-profit organization, foundation, philanthropists and other relative stakeholders. If there was any requirement by the funding provider, it should be identified by the principle of mutual respect, equal consultations and win-win to each other between APQN and the provider.
Monitoring the Activities of the Projects
The monitoring of the project is mainly based on the output. The project groups are expected to provide an interim report in the middle of the proposed timetable, and complete their work according to the timetable. The output of the project could be either a report or a book or an event of workshop and others, which should highlight the logo of APQN, and the partial or whole content will also be available on the APQN website.
