From September 8^th to 12^th 2025, the 20^th Plenary Meeting of ASEA-UNINET was hosted at the University of Brescia in Italy and marked by inspiring presentations and fruitful discussions. Dionisi Nikolov, Director of the Competence Center for EM&CEE at WU Vienna, gave a presentation on the topic of “International Network Management at WU Vienna”, focusing primarily on the following aspects:

• Involvement and role of the Competence Center in ASEA-UNINET since 2023

• Ernst Mach Grant Full PhD-Initiative of the Competence Center

• The Competence Center as a “Second Hub” for ASEA-UNINET PhD-students 

• Funding Opportunities beyond ASEA-UNINET

• How can we use the potential of international academic networks both for regional partners and for our own university?

The Competence Center takes an active role in several international WU networks, such as ASEA-UNINET. Our goal is to strengthen WU’s international presence in these networks and expand cooperations with educational institutions worldwide. We try to achieve this by providing information on funding schemes and network events, and by supporting  WU faculty and prospective researchers from emerging economies as regards research funding and scholarships.

Within ASEA-UNINET, the Competence Center launched a new initiative in 2023 to strengthen cooperation between WU and universities in Southeast Asia. We pro-actively approach WU researchers who would like to supervise PhD students or young Post-Docs from the region and we support both sides – our WU colleagues and prospective researchers from Southeast Asia – during the application process.