14The irruption of Human Resource Management (HRM) as a strategic element for quality development of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is relatively recent. Few decades back and until our days, HR approaches just focused on staff recruitment, employment contracts and payment of salaries. This scenario is deeply changing with the international growth and increasing complexity of Higher Education. HRM aspects such as staff motivation, continuous development, evaluation, and strategic planning are gathering momentum under HEIs’ strategic plans worldwide.

The evolution of HRM is, however, slow and certainly challenging in developing countries. In Southeast Asia (SEA), HEIs are facing significant difficulties derived from disparities in their countries’ political and social structures as well as the backgrounds of their Higher Education systems. Well-structured HRM strategies could very much contribute to HE development and HEIs’ autonomy, thus supporting the processes of reform towards regional growth.

Against this background, HR4Asia aims at contributing to HE organisational reform in SEA by improving HRM at the target HEIs from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and Thailand.

This global objective will be pursued by means of three specific objectives, namely:

(i) Building capacity in HRM at SEA HEIs to enhance organizational performance;

(ii) Improving HRM Strategic plans for more staffing autonomy;

(iii) Setting up of a University HR Network as a regional forum for the exchange of knowledge and best practices.

With these, HR4Asia will introduce in SEA HEIs a scheme to developing and implementing innovative HRM approaches, paying attention to transversal and additional skills, such as communication and self-learning.