Overview of the opportunity 

Under the Going Global Partnerships Programme, the British Council in Malaysia in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) has launched the inaugural UK-Malaysia University Consortium in 2022, which is designed to be a flagship initiative that promotes strategic engagement and bilateral cooperation in higher education between its partner universities in the UK and in Malaysia. 

Through cooperation between the British Council and the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, the Consortium comprising 16 UK universities and 20 Malaysia public universities will lay a foundation for creating long term collaborations, shared priorities, and complementary expertise between UK and Malaysia in HE. This is aligned with the Malaysian Higher Education Blueprint 2015-2025 and the UK International Education Strategy.  

Paving the path to achieving the Consortium’s aim, the British Council is delighted to publish a restricted grant call for lead institutions from the UK-Malaysia University Consortium to submit joint proposals in response to the UK-Malaysia Partnerships Catalyst Grant 2022.  A total grant value of GBP220,000 has been allocated to support four higher education collaborative projects (GBP55,000 each) between the UK and Malaysia Consortium member institutions that address emerging higher education challenges which are shared by UK and Malaysia.  

Objective 

The overarching aim of the Grant is to facilitate partnerships among Consortium university members in UK and Malaysia in any of the four thematic areas below. The four thematic areas are decided based on the consolidated feedback from the consortium members on their priority areas for internationalisation and collaboration. Cross-thematic and interdisciplinary proposals are strongly encouraged. Please refer to Appendix 1 of the Call Guidelines for Applicants for the context of each thematic area.  

1. Student Employability and Future Work Skills 

2. Innovative Pedagogy including curriculum and digitalisation 

3. Entrepreneurship 

4. Women Leadership and Empowerment 

The Grant can cover partnership activities with the objectives below. 

• Strengthen capacity and quality in teaching, learning, research and innovation 

• Share knowledge and exchange best practices 

• Establish new institutional partnerships or enhance existing institutional partnerships in  

1. student and staff mobility 

2. internships and attachments 

3. research and innovation 

4. transnational education 

Activities covered by the grant can be delivered in digital, face-to-face or blended formats. However, we strongly encourage the applicants consider the carbon footprint when planning and designing the activities for the proposals.  

Grant Eligibility 

The funding allocation for the Grant is GBP220,000 in total, and it is intended to support 4 partnership projects.  For each project, funding of up to £55,000 will be awarded for a project duration of maximum 15 months from 1 October 2022 to 31 December 2023.   

The funding must be jointly applied by a UK university and a Malaysia university which are both members of the UK-Malaysia University Consortium.  However, partners for the project or known as associated partners may not be limited to the Consortium university members. Please refer to the attached ‘GGP Grant Guidelines’ for the list of UK and Malaysia University Consortium members.  

The British Council will sign the grant agreement with the leading UK universities and channel the funding to them in which they will be responsible to transfer the funding to their Malaysia counterparts. The leading UK and Malaysia universities are expected to discuss and reach an agreement about funding management and disbursement arrangement prior to apply to the Grant and attach a letter describing their funding management and disbursement arrangement signed by both leading universities to the application.  

The UK universities who sign a grant agreement with the British Council will be accountable for the funding; however, their Malaysia counterparts should be aware of the British Council’s funding requirements to prevent any unforeseen circumstances that will delay the project delivery and closure or lead to the withdrawal of funding.  

The funding for the Grant is for the whole project duration and not per annum.  

Timeline