EISIPS is directed to teachers, students, and experts working on Indo-Pacific Studies (IPS) both from and beyond the EU. In order to address the needs of these target groups and improve the quality of IPS in Europe, the project is in line with the following EU priorities for higher education:

• Open education and innovative practices in a digital era
• Developing skills – developing curricula relevant to the labor market and societal needs
• Supporting the transfer of latest research back into education

The objectives of the project range from creating didactic materials, recommendations and organizing events, and their common aim is to improve the quality of teaching IPS by offering a comprehensive set of innovative didactic tools in an Open Access manner as well with tips and guidelines on how to use them. EISIPS will work toward strengthening the global position of IPS education in the European Union. The project’s main objectives are listed below:

Open Access New Handbook

A multidisciplinary, state-of-the-art, Handbook of Indo-Pacific Studies, covering historical and contemporary issues of politics, security, economics, culture, society and other aspects of IPS in a comprehensive way

Free Online podcasts

A series of supporting online podcasts presenting handbook topics in an accessible way for learners and teachers. These can serve as e-learning materials for the handbook.

Teaching Guidelines

A user-guide on how to implement innovative teaching techniques and assessment methods in Indo-Pacific Studies, which were tailor-made for teachers planning to use the handbook and other didactic materials. For students and other end-users there will be specific guidelines and tips for self-study.

Curriculum Design

Another goal of EISIPS is to make recommendations for institutions that teach IPS to improve existing IPS curricula in higher education by altering or complementing course offers and making the content more relevant to the contemporary labor market.

Teacher Trainings Events

EISIPS focuses to improve the teaching skills of IPS educators – during training events and workshops, educators from partners will be trained by education experts in innovative didactic techniques. During the dissemination phase, these educators will pass on these skills to other teachers of IPS from partner institutions and beyond the consortium.

International Conferences

The EISIPS project organizes two main international events for scholars of IPS to meet and discuss the evolution and future of IPS in an interdisciplinary setting. Scholars and experts are invited to present papers, in various disciplines. There will be various roundtables to share and discuss the insights from the IPS S scholarly community on a various range of topics. During these events the EISIPS project will present its project outcomes such as the handbook, other materials, recommendations for curriculum design as well as guidelines for teachers of IPS.

EISIPS has the following milestones to be reached by the end of the project:

• changing study programs in the EU to establish and support IPS
• improving didactic potential of teachers of Indo-Pacific Studies by providing them with innovative didactic tools, competences and recommendations
• increasing the number of students specialized in IPS (through teaching) – 350 MA /yearly
• increasing the number of scholars specialized in IPS (also through self-study) – 100/yearly
• increasing awareness among the general public about the importance of the Indo-Pacific Region – 150 during, 4000 after project has ended.
• 7 partners will update their curricula and teaching techniques for IPS at MA level
• 21 educators trained in teaching IPS, will do field trainings in the EU, India or Japan
• 240 students will test handbook chapters in India and Japan
• 90 students will test chapters in the EU
• 4 dissemination events

All these outcomes are self-reinforcing like a virtuous circle: IPS programs will be active (and relevant) for years to come considering the rise of the Indo-Pacific region regarding global capital flows, trade, services, political influence, development, migration, regional security challenges and global challenges like multipolar great power rivalry (beyond the US-China rivalry), ecology and climate change. These factors in turn will create a growing need (pull factor) that will ensure a stable increase of new specialists on the region, which in turn will reinforce the human capital at HEIs (in the EU and beyond) to study the region, and engage with it professionally, legitimizing its pivotal role in global affairs. This same growing need will attract future funding by policy-makers for HEIs that have successfully adopted IPS. This will be a push factor for those Asia studies that have not conformed to ISP yet and do not focus on the interlinkages of Asia’s ever increasingly connected subregions.

Since all outputs are tangible, and available through OPEN ACCESS on various online platforms or e-resource databases. These platforms will receive funding for their upkeep by the coordinator and the handbook availability in online databases will be guaranteed (by legal contract) by collaborating with a renowned publisher.

The MONEY-VALUE of the handbook, which will of course be free in its digital version, will without doubt outcompete many of its future competitors for years to come, especially since at the moment NO handbook on this topic is available. EISIPS scholarly expertise that will be put into its development, cannot be outdone by single institutions, and will not easily be outdone by consortia either without similar funding opportunities.