In today globalised world Higher Education is considered as a public good that has a potential to contribute to the country development agenda and promote an economic growth through upgrading skills and boosting research. In this regard, Ministry of Education and Sport (MoES) of Lao PDR recognizes as one of its priority to boost the Internationalisation of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Laos by increasing “internal and external cooperation” with the objective to improve teaching and learning outcomes and enable higher education to work for society.

The most important problem and need for Laotion universities is to set up appropriate structures (IROs) and harmonise internationalisation practices as proposed by MoES. This harmonisation should include the sharing of basic and current practices, long established already in countries belonging to the European Higher Education Area, which could facilitate the exchange of students and academic staff, the development of joint projects or other international activities.

OPEN’s general objective is therefore to increase the academic quality and research activities of universities in the PDR of Laos through the development of internationalisation capacities.

Specifically, OPEN aims to:

• To consolidate Internationalisation structure, & build human capacities of HEIs by means of targeted training programmes in 5 HEIs;
• To accompany the governance reforms of MoES and enhance international networking through strategic actions in key areas of the Laos higher education system.