From Handshakes to Partnerships
“People think it’s about business, but the hidden message behind it is actually collaboration, partnerships, where you work with the community, learn from the community, and they also learn something from you.”
That idea captures the essence of STABLE (Higher Education Partnership for a Sustainable Blue Economy), one of the Higher Education Institution (HEI) Clusters under the EU–ASEAN Sustainable Connectivity Package – Higher Education Programme (SCOPE-HE). Funded by the European Union through the Global Gateway initiative, SCOPE-HE brings together universities across Europe and Southeast Asia to strengthen higher education collaboration through research, innovation, academic mobility and capacity development.
For Bryan, the greatest value of STABLE is not simply the activities it delivers, but the relationships it creates.
Beyond Networking
Bryan’s involvement in STABLE began with what seemed like an ordinary academic visit to IPB University. Conversations around a shared research interest gradually evolved into discussions on curriculum development and eventually into a broader partnership involving universities across Europe and Southeast Asia.
As the collaboration grew, so did the opportunities it created.
“Through this partnership, we actually improve our networking,” Bryan explains.
“Through this Summer School, I’ve also met new colleagues that I will be having future projects with”
Rather than viewing networking as an end, Bryan sees it as the beginning of something much bigger. Every new connection creates opportunities for future research, joint teaching and student exchanges that continue long after a project activity has ended.
A Common Playground
International collaborations often begin with institutional visits or academic conferences. Valuable as they are, Bryan believes they rarely create the same level of engagement as learning together.
The H2O Summer Course offered something different.
“When it comes to the Summer School, it is a playground that is common to everyone,” he says.
Within that shared learning environment, lecturers, researchers and students from different countries and disciplines worked side by side, exchanging ideas through field visits, discussions and collaborative learning.
For Bryan, these shared experiences build something difficult to achieve through formal meetings alone: a community of like-minded researchers and educators.
Relationships that once began with a polite handshake gradually turned into ‘sparks’ for next round of engagements from conference speaker invites to research project partnerships, conversations about research ideas, teaching approaches and future collaboration.
“The confidence is there now,” Bryan reflects. “When we meet colleagues from IPB or ZMT, it’s no longer just a handshake, it’s about next round of partnerships.”
