New Erasmus+ capacity building project to strengthen sustainability education in Indonesia
Maastricht School of Management (MSM) has secured a new Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) grant for the project European–Indonesian Partnership for Strengthening Higher Education on Environmental and Sustainability Sciences in Indonesia (ENHANCE). The initiative, developed under the 2025 CBHE call, brings together seven universities from Europe and Indonesia to advance the quality, relevance, and accessibility of graduate education in sustainability sciences.
Implemented across four Indonesian regions, the project is coordinated by MSM and involves Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore from Italy and the University of Göttingen from Germany, together with IPB University, Universitas Palangka Raya, Universitas Nusa Cendana, and Universitas Mataram in Indonesia. The partnership reflects long-standing academic cooperation and responds to Indonesia’s national priorities on sustainable development, climate resilience, and human capital strengthening. Moreover, providing the ability to scale-up beyond the project duration with a nation-wide plan.
The projects’ aim is to support Indonesia’s transition towards a green and inclusive economy. Higher education institutions face growing demands to modernize their curricula, enhance research capacity, and better align skills development with labour market needs. The ENHANCE project directly addresses these needs by promoting interdisciplinary sustainability education, strengthening graduate school structures, and embedding systems thinking, complexity science, and transdisciplinary collaboration across programs.
Over the coming years, the consortium will work on the modernization of master’s-level curricula, the development of contextualized sustainability modules, and the establishment of peer-learning and multi-stakeholder platforms. Activities will include faculty training, curriculum revision, development of interdisciplinary research trajectories, and the design of new graduate school pathways tailored to Indonesia’s diverse biospheres, ranging from peatland ecosystems to volcanic landscapes and dryland agriculture, all requiring localized yet scalable sustainability science solutions.
Expected outcomes include improved institutional capacities, improved teaching methodologies, stronger collaboration between universities and external stakeholders, especially by including local knowledge systems, and the introduction of innovative educational approaches such as field immersion, problem-based learning, and the integration of digital and AI-based tools. The project also places strong emphasis on gender equality, inclusiveness, and internationalization, ensuring that benefits extend to underserved regions and diverse academic communities.
By reinforcing the foundations of sustainability education in Indonesia, the ENHANCE project aims to contribute to long-term national objectives, support ASEAN-wide collaboration, and stimulate the emergence of graduate schools equipped to respond to complex societal and environmental challenges. The initiative marks an important step in widening EU–Indonesia cooperation in higher education and advancing shared commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals.
The project will be led by Ms. Gigi Limpens of MSM and will run from January 2026 until December 2028.
This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
MSM's Expert Centre on Emerging Economies
This institutional collaboration project is part of MSM's Expert Centre on Emerging Economies. The department is an expert centre on sustainable private sector development in emerging and developing markets. We capacitate managers and professionals from government, private sector, NGOs, and post-secondary education in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America. We offer consultancy and customized training programs, and we manage complex projects in key sectors, e.g. water, agriculture and health. For more information click here.
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