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The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the contributions of the Asia‐Pacific region to leading practice in sustainability in higher education (HE), as prelude and orientation to this special issue collection from different countries and regions.

This is a critical review that includes international and regional policy contexts in sustainability and “education for sustainable development” (ESD), whilst exploring the trajectories of key initiatives across the region and considering the broader context of sustainability innovation within the HE sector.

The Asia‐Pacific region offers many creative initiatives and shows considerable progress in ESD and in understanding the learning dimensions of sustainability. At the same time, it mirrors global trends in that further work is needed to promote systemic change in educational arenas, particularly in terms of strategic integration within HE institutions. The Asia‐Pacific contributions to this collection demonstrate the need to harness national policy, to develop local and regional initiatives and to work effectively towards more profound change in HE curricula and through collaboration with external communities and stakeholders.

This is a distinctive collection of new initiatives from the Asia‐Pacific, which compensates for the comparative lack of dissemination in this area. There is considerable sustainability innovation emerging in this region which shows leading‐edge responses from within the HE sector on a number of key challenges and issues.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the long-run equilibrium relationship between developed, emerging and frontier markets of the Asia-Pacific region during January 2000 to June 2016.

Zivot and Andrews’ unit root test is used to examine the existence of unit root in index series in the presence of a structural break. Gregory and Hansen’s test of cointegration is employed to examine the stable long-run relationship between the indices under study.

The results suggest that the emerging markets of China and Thailand and the frontier markets of Sri Lanka and Pakistan are fairly segmented from most of the markets in the Asia-Pacific region. Hence, these markets provide good diversification opportunities to global investors. Bidirectional cointegration analysis indicates that emerging and frontier markets influence developed markets. Hence, it can be inferred that the de facto position that only bigger markets influence small markets no longer holds true in the current environment.

The findings of this study will provide valuable inputs to global investors for creating an optimal investment portfolio.

This study does a comprehensive examination of market integration in the Asia-Pacific region. It also contributes to the thin body of work done on frontier markets. Unlike past studies, this paper analyzes the bidirectional cointegration relationship to examine if the notion that only bigger markets influence smaller markets holds true or not. Finally, this study employs advanced techniques of unit root test and cointegration test that consider structural breaks in the models.

Through the ideas of and within Oceania that we outline, and within which we locate architecture and institutions for CIE regionally, we illustrate the identified turning points through analysis of dynamic and intersecting trajectories of the Oceania Comparative and International Education Society (OCIES), formerly the Australia and New Zealand Comparative and International Education Society (ANZCIES), and the Vaka Pasifiki, formerly the Rethinking Pacific Education Initiative for and by Pacific Peoples (RPEIPP) project. We offer initial responses to an over-arching theme in posing the question: how, and through what processes, have these groups influenced understandings of ‘regionalism’ for CIE within Oceania? This involves examining the conferences, financing, membership, the Society journal/publications and aspects of CIE education of the two bodies.

This chapter presents a survey of education development in Oceania, a region of diversity held together by its commonalities, shaped by the largest ocean on the planet. The chapter outlines the regional contexts of Oceania and offers a brief historical overview of formal education. Oceania, like most regions, has struggled to mediate between global agendas and national and regional aspirations for sovereignty and self-determination. The chapter recounts ongoing efforts to navigate education in the post-colonial period, efforts to negotiate some of the aspirations of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for All (EFA), and other global agendas of the early 2000s with, more recently, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this survey, we hope to demonstrate collective efforts to respond to global agendas, to shape and strengthen regionalism, while maintaining sovereignty in a globalized world. We also highlight the evolving identities of the region, in particular the relationships between Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific countries that collectively make up Oceania.

The purpose of this paper is to create an area profile of significant activity and possibility in higher education for sustainable development (ESD) in the island nations of the South Pacific Ocean.

This is a descriptive research paper on philosophy, policy, and practice according to a methodology of categorical analysis by developments, challenges, and prospects. The focus is on higher education institutions, particularly the University of the South Pacific, the regional university of 12 Island nations in Oceania. The developments and prospects are contextualized, however, in the larger regional Pacific Education for Sustainable Development Framework and the Action Plan for Sustainable Development in the Pacific Islands 2008‐2014. Academic programs, policy statements, and education projects are analyzed.

South Pacific universities possess rich missions that valorize traditional knowledge and culture. The region also has a sophisticated policy environment for sustainability. These factors create many opportunities for sustainability in higher education. Nevertheless, enormous challenges of distance, funding, cultural traditions, globalisation, and adaptation to the devastating effects of climate destabilisation make progress difficult. Successes and promising prospects are described, including a new major effort to mainstream higher ESD by creating a Pacific Network of Island Universities (the NIU Project), which will reach 13 nations, including Papua New Guinea.

Little analysis of sustainability in higher education has been done in this geographical area. The categorical approach of this paper will provide researchers with findings appropriate to several endeavors, including charting a way forward in sustainability in higher education in the South Pacific Island nations. South Pacific initiatives arising from the unique nature of island geography and tradition could illuminate for others what is called the “Pacific Way.” Comparative analysis to mainland nations in the Asia‐Pacific region may also prove useful to researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to examine in a fully up-to-date manner the position in respect to the licensing and launch of long-term evolution (LTE) in a region that attracts relatively little attention when treated as a whole because the emphasis is usually upon the very large individual markets (China, India and Japan) contained within it. The purpose is also to examine the role of international groups and the extent to which the licensing of LTE can make a difference to the structure of mobile markets in the region.

The initial step was to compile extensive databases with respect to the licensing and launch of high-speed networks in the region – defined both narrowly and also to encompass countries that are often treated as part of the Middle East – arranged so as to emphasise the status of dominant incumbents. There is a discussion of new entry and its potential to disrupt incumbents.

For historical reasons, the region contains countries that have strong differences whether defined in terms of economic, social or cultural characteristics, and hence it has not been easy for a network with international aspirations to expand outside its home market nor for, say, European-based operators to gain a foothold. Attempts to introduce competition via new licences has also been problematic because of the strong, and sometimes very large, incumbents already present.

This is necessarily an overview that uses selected data to describe the overall picture because of the substantial number of quite different markets surveyed.

It is possible to forecast how certain structural changes will occur – primarily the withdrawal of international groups such as Millicom that prefer to concentrate upon other regions.

The databases that underpin the analysis are author-compiled and entirely original.

In this chapter, increasing education civil society organization (CSO) and coalition participation in education and development policy processes is interpreted from the perspective of network governance theories. In 2015 “deadline” year for the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals, I consider their significance and influences within the decolonizing and reorienting “policyscapes” that govern the region and/or sub-region that is variously known as Oceania and the Pacific. The chapter is based on continuing research begun in 2007 into education policy processes at multiple discursive and geographical levels of activity, with a focus on the Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and Melanesian sub-regions. A critical educational policy approach is taken, specifically drawn from the application of methods of Critical Discourse Analysis based in critical development and postcolonial theories. These analytical strategies are particularly salient in mapping and understanding how education policy actors, some “new,” have moved toward and through inclusive and protective regionalism(s). These had developed prior to and during the past quarter of a century of significant changes to governments, governing and governance in the Pacific, Oceania, and well beyond.

Describes the origin and growth of the Asia Pacific Quality Control Organization (APQCO) from its inception in 1981, its formal initiation in 1985 and its development to the present. The APQCO is a federation of national quality organizations within the Asia Pacific region. It is patterned after the highly effective European Organization for Quality (EOQ). As the nations of the Asia Pacific region continued to industrialize, it was both timely and appropriate that their national quality organizations should form a federation to exchange information and to work together for their mutual benefit. Contains some speculation about the future of the APQCO.

This study reveals the economic impact of the Indo-Pacific Strategy on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

This paper uses the GTAP model to analyze the economic effects of RCEP under the effect of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy” under different scenarios.

The results show that (1) with the improvement of the implementation effect of the US “Indo-Pacific Strategy,” the welfare level of China has gradually had a significant negative impact, while the welfare level of US Allies and partners has been further improved. (2) The implementation of the Indo-Pacific Strategy will further expand the import scale of Japan, South Korea and other Allies that are both RCEP members and the USA and slightly reduce the import scale of the European Union (EU) and other countries. (3) After the USA implemented the “Indo-Pacific Strategy,” its export scale has significantly improved, and it has been able to completely offset the adverse effects of the signing of RCEP on its exports. China's export scale has also gradually declined, and Japan has benefited the most.

There are three main possible contributions to this article: first, the authors combined geopolitical factors to simulate and evaluate the economic effects of RCEP under different Indo-Pacific Strategy implementation scenarios, which is more relevant than analyzing the economic effects of RCEP in a “vacuum.” Second, the standard static GTAP model can only measure the change of equilibrium state before and after the trade policy. At the same time, the dynamic GTAP model (GTAP-Dyn) introduces mechanisms such as capital flow and capital accumulation and treats time as a continuous variable affected by exogenous variables so that each variable has a time dimension so as better to simulate the medium- and long-term economic effects. This paper refers to the dynamic recursion method of Walmsley (2006) and Yang (2011) to update the base year of the GTAP version 10.0 database to 2020, that is the time when RCEP officially reached 2020. The simulation results of shock variables introduced into the baseline scenario are more reliable. Third, the authors analyze the welfare effect of RCEP and the impact on the import and export of relevant countries from the macrolevel and examine the impact on different products in different countries from the microlevel.

Islamic capital markets, i.e. ICMs, featured as socially responsible investments, less levered and more reflective of the real sector, are a recent development in financial markets showing an impressive growth and offering the potential for portfolio diversification benefits. The purpose of this study is to understand the long-run integration of ICMs in the Asia/Pacific region.

This sample includes ICMs of Asia/Pacific region (such as Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia) for 280 weeks between 2011 and 2016. Selected indexes are FTSE Islamic except for Pakistan and Indonesia. Evidence was obtained through the application of correlation, unit root, Johansen cointegration and Granger causality tests.

This study documents the results of the integration of ICMs based on developmental stage, geographic location, economic cooperation and shared religious beliefs/civilization. Partial support was observed for all hypotheses: integration of markets based on economic grouping, location, economic treaties and shared civilization. The Japanese market was the most integrated, while the Indian and Malaysian markets are the least. Evidence supports the shift of leadership role from advanced markets to emerging markets.

Selected diversification opportunities are available for global Islamic as well as conventional investors. This study recommends closer cooperation among Muslim majority countries of the region, as well as the effective use of economic cooperation treaties for joint economic growth and prosperity.

This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence on the integration of ICMs in an economically important region (Asia/Pacific) that is witnessing an increasing role in the global gross domestic product and international trade.