The Philippines is a long-standing partner country where VLIR-UOS cooperation was at a lower level during a number of years and since 2017 cooperation was re-opened aiming at motivating researchers to submit project proposals and strengthening the partnership ties. From 2003 to 2023 VLIR-UOS spent around € 16,3 million in cooperation with the Philippines, including a long-term Institutional University Cooperation (IUC) programme with Benguet State and Saint Louis university. Currently TEAM/SI and ITP projects are the core of the activities in the Philippines.

The Philippines is also one of our 29 scholarship countries.

Ongoing projects

TEAM projects

Strengthening Digital Research at the UP system: digitization of rare periodicals and training in Digital Humanities

South Initiatives

Violence, Human Rights and Democracy in the Philippines: Publishing and Disseminating an Open Access Book Implementing Open Design methods in engineering of agricultural machinery in co-creation with small farm cooperatives Developing natural ways to rehabilitate mercury-contaminated soils and evaluating their efficiency using bio-indicators Strengthening Entrepreneurial and Networking Capacity of Cocoa Farming and Processing Households in Bicol Region, Philippines Urban Poor Women and Children with Academics for Reaching and Delivering on UNSDGs in the Philippines - (UPWARD-UP)

Philippines and Agenda 2030 - country reference framework

VLIR-UOS revised its country approach towards an ‘Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development’ centred approach. Moreover, VLIR-UOS wants to facilitate connections between different actors and projects present in a given country. With these objectives in mind, the Country Reference Framework (CRF) for Philippines supports teams of academics when identifying and formulating project proposals, by providing a context analysis focused on Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development and the higher education sector in Philippines, and by providing an overview of Belgian development actors active in Philippines, their ongoing projects and partners, in view of exploration of opportunities for synergy and complementarity. Belgian Non-Governmental Actors involved in the geographic Joint Strategic Framework (JSF) Philippines as well as those involved in the thematic JSF on Higher Education and Science for Sustainable Development have been included.