Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project
HEQEP
Operations Manual
for
Academic Innovation Fund
(Second Edition)
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University Grants Commission of Bangladesh
Ministry of Education
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
Operations Manual for Academic Innovation Fund
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Table of Contents
- Strategic Context
- The Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP)
- The Academic Innovation Fund (AIF)
- Academic Innovation Fund Purpose
- The AIF Coverage
- Specific Objectives of AIF
- Beneficiaries and Expected Results
- Performance Indicators
- Grouping of Universities
- The AIF Investment Windows
- The AIF Windows
- The AIF Allocation
- Indicative Eligible Expenditure
- Earning by Sub-projects
- Eligibility for Receiving AIF Grants
- Matching Funds from Private Universities
- Call for Proposals
- Proposal Submitting Entities
- Submission of Proposals
- Institutional Arrangements for Proposal Evaluation/Selection
- Proposal Submission Procedure
- Institutional Arrangement
- Total Proposal Evaluation/Selection Period
- University AIF Secretariat (UAIFS)
- Proposal Evaluation/Selection Process
- University Proposal Screening Committee (UPSC)
- Evaluation/Selection Criteria for UPSC
- AIF Secretariat of UGC (UGCAIFS)
- Terms of Reference of UGCAIFS
- Functions of UGCAIFS
- Pool of Peer Reviewers and Committee of Experts
- Functions of Peer Reviewers
- Evaluation Criteria for Peer Reviewers
- UGC Board for AIF (UGCBAIF)
- Terms of Reference of the UGCBAIF
- Final Selection Period
- Technical Comments from IDA
- Sub-project Management
- Disposal of Appeal
- Performance Contract
- Dispute Resolution
- AIF Effectiveness Condition
- Duration of AIF Sub-projects
- Financial Management
- Procurement
- Monitoring and Evaluation
- Environment Management Framework (EMF)
- Review/Supervision of Sub-projects
- Audit
- Sanctions
- Amendment
REFERENCES
List of Tables
Table 1 Beneficiaries and Expected Results from the AIF
Table 2 AIF Allocation in Second Round by Windows, Disciplines and Individual Size of Grants
Table 3 AIF Allocation to three Groups of Universities in the Second Round
Table 4 Evaluation/Selection Criteria for Preliminary Proposals by UPSC
Table 5 Evaluation Criteria for Complete Proposals by ARPs
Table 6 Procurement Risk Mitigation Plan
List of Figures
Figure 1 AIF Proposal Evaluation/Selection Institutional Arrangement
Figure 2 Proposal Selection Process Flow Chart
Annexes
Annex 1-AConcept Note on Self-Assessment
Annex 1-BConcept Note on SWOT Analysis
Annex 2Concept Note on Performance Indicators
Annex 3Group List of Universities
Annex 4AIF Sub-project Management Incentives
Annex 5 Preliminary Proposal (PP) Format for Improvement of Teaching-learning at Undergraduate and Master’s Level
Annex 6 Complete Proposal (CP) Format for Improvement of Teaching-learning at Undergraduate and Master’s Level
Annex 7 Preliminary Proposal(PP) Format for Promoting Innovative Research & Research Facilities
Annex 8 Complete Proposal (CP) Format for Promoting Innovative Research & Research Facilities
Annex 9 Preliminary Proposal (PP) Format forImprovement of Research Capabilities for Postgraduate Programs
Annex 10 Complete Proposal (CP) Format forImprovement of Research Capabilities for Postgraduate Programs
Annex 11 Complete Proposal (CP) Format for Self-Assessment Exercise
Annex 12 Complete Proposal (CP) Format for University-wide Innovation
Annex 13 Evaluation Form for ARPs and ERs
Annex 14 Complementary Selection Criteria for UGCBAIF
Annex 15 AIF Performance Contract for Public Universities
Annex 16 AIF Performance Contract for Private Universities
Annex 17 World Bank Guidelines on preventing and combating fraud and corruption in Projects
Annex 18 Financial Management Questionnaire (FMQ)
Annex 19 Formats for Sub-project Financial Management Report
Annex 20 Formats for Sub-project Quarterly Progress Report
Annex 21 Formats for Sub-project Six-monthly Monitoring Report
Annex 22 Environment and Safety Checklist for Minor Renovation Works
Annex 23 Environment and Safety Checklist for Research and University-wide Proposal
Annex 24 Economic Codes for Development Works
Abbreviations & Acronyms
ADP Annual Development Program
AIF Academic Innovation Fund
AIFMUAIF Management Unit (in Private Universities)
AIFOMAcademic Innovation Fund Operations Manual
ARCSAudit Report Compliance system
ARPArea Review Panel
ARPsArea Review Panels
BdRENBangladesh Research and Education Network
BEC Bid Evaluation Committee
BOCBid Opening Committee
BOM Bid Opening Minutes
C&AGComptroller & Auditor General of Bangladesh
CAOChief Accounts Officer
CDCompact Disc
CD-VATCustoms Duty and Value Added Tax
CECommittee of Experts
CGA Comptroller General of Accounts
CONTASAConvertible Taka Special Account
CPComplete Proposal
CPsComplete Proposals
CPFSConsolidated Project Financial Statement
CPPComplete Project Proposal
CPTUCentral Procurement Technical Unit
CQConsultant’s Qualification
DADesignated Account
DAIFDirectorate of Academic Innovation Fund
DC Direct Contracting
DFADirector, Finance & Accounts (in UGC and PublicUniversities)
DoE Department of Environment
DPDDirector, Planning & Development
EIAEnvironmental Impact Assessment
EMFEnvironnent Management Framework
EMPEnvironment Management Plan
EoI Expression of Interest
ER External Reviewer
FAFinancing Agreement
FAPADForeign Aided Projects Audit Directorate
FBS Fixed Budget Selection
FDFinance Division
FMFinancial Management
FMQFinancial Management Questionnaire
FMS Financial Management System
GoBGovernment of Bangladesh
HEQEPHigher Education Quality Enhancement Project
HEQEPUHigher Education Quality Enhancement Project Unit
HEIsHigher Education Institutions
IC Individual Consultant
ICBInternational Competitive Bidding
ICTInformation & Communication Technologies
IDAInternational Development Association
IFT Invitation for Tender
IMEDImplementation, Monitoring & Evaluation Division
IUFR Interim Un-Audited Financial Report
LCLetter of Credit
LCS Least Cost Selection
M&EMonitoring & Evaluation
MDGMillennium Development Goals
MEU M & E Unit
MoEMinistry of Education
MoFMinistry of Finance
MoPMinistry of Planning
MTBFMid-term Budget Framework
NCBNational Competitive Bidding
NOA Notification of Award
NS National Shopping
OAOperating Account
OMOperations Manual
PAProject Aid
PAC Project Audit Committee
PAM Project Accounting Manual
PDProject Director
PECProposal Evaluation Committee
PFP Procurement Focal Point
PFPs Procurement Focal Points
PIAProject Implementing Agency
PIMProject Implementation Manual
PPPreliminary Proposal
PPAPublic Procurement Act2006
PoPAPost Procurement Audit
PPPPreliminary Project Proposal
PPRPublic Procurement Regulations 2003
PPRPPublic Procurement Reform Project
PRMPProcurement Risk Mitigation Plan
PRSPPoverty Reduction Strategy Paper
QBSQuality-Based Selection
QCBSQuality and Cost Based Selection
RFPRequest for Proposal
RIBECReform in Budgeting and Expenditure Control
SAN Statement of Audit Needs
SBDStandard Bidding Document
SoEStatement of Expenditure
SPM Sub-project Manager
SPMT Sub-project Management Team
SSS Single-Source Selection
TEC Tender Evaluation Committee
TER Tender Evaluation Report
TOC Tender Opening Committee
ToRTerms of Reference
UAIFSUniversity Academic Innovation Fund Secretariat (Public Universities)
UGCUniversity Grants Commission of Bangladesh
UGCAIFSUniversity Grants Commission Academic Innovation Fund Secretariat
UGCBAIFUniversity Grants Commission Board for Academic Innovation Fund
UNDPUnited Nations Development Program
UPSCUniversity Proposal Screening Committee
WBWorld Bank
WBOD World Bank Office Dhaka
Preface to Second Edition
In the preface to the first edition attention was drawn to the necessity of building a competitive higher education system in the age of globalization and called upon the academia to develop national innovation potential and human capital by participating in AIF. As we moved forward a year from the first round proposal call given in May 2010 to announce the second round call in June this year Bangladesh and the world have changed a lot. Bangladesh’s economy is doing well in spite of prolonged and frequent global crises, climate change induced disasters, fast population growth, runaway urbanization and increasing environmental degradation. These phenomena have put up fresh challenges to the country which must seek out ways collectively to mitigate the problems and thrust upon the academia a historic task of generating knowledge, new ideas and technologies that would contribute towards achieving the nation’s development goals.
UGC is happy to note that the universities responded overwhelmingly to the first round AIF proposal call and the 27 public and five eligible private universities submitted over 700 proposals in the first round of AIF. That reflected the genuine concern and urges the Bangladeshi academics felt for improving the quality and relevance of our tertiary education which is expanding moderately to accommodate the burgeoning number of secondary graduates. It was a grueling job for the academics to screen and evaluate these 700 proposals by following a very transparent and fair review procedure laid out in this Manual and UGC was obliged to increase the amount allocated for the first round to some extent in order to satisfy the enhanced demand. We wish that we had sufficient funds to accommodate some more high quality proposals.
UGC is confident that we are about to witness much more robust responses to the second round proposal call from the universities. We are also on much firmer ground now with the experience gained through the processing of first round proposals whose implementation at the universities have just began. It is encouraging that SPMs are executing responsibilities with high professionalism and so far no significant deviation has been witnessed.
I must gratefully acknowledge the excellent cooperation and valuable assistance UGC and the HEQEP unit have received from the Ministry of Education and the World Bank in carrying out of the project implementing tasks.
I take this opportunity to thank my numerous colleagues in the universities who have come forward with great enthusiasm and sincerity to promote innovation in their respective institutions and build a strong higher education system in Bangladesh by engaging themselves in AIF. The foundations of knowledge economy are put together at the lecture rooms and laboratories of universities. High performance connectivity through BdREN would provide huge boost to the universities’ capacity for carrying out advanced research that would lead to enhanced productivity and social development and production of large number of skilled human capital who can successfully compete in the global economy.
(Prof. Dr. A K Azad Chowdhury)
Chairman
University Grants Commission of Bangladesh
FOREWORD
Bangladesh is passing through a new era of social and economic transformation triggered by globalization. The importance of knowledge as the prime driver of growth has brought forward unprecedented challenges before the tertiary education of the country. Education in general, and tertiary education in particular, is now more catalytic than ever in building the knowledge society. The universities produce and act as the repository of most advanced knowledge and contribute to develop the production system upon which the economy of a country rests.
In today’s globalized economy tertiary education can produce advanced knowledge only if it has the capability to innovate and bring innovation successfully to market. Therefore academic innovation is the crucial determinant that gives the universities edge over global competitiveness among the nations.
Considering this the present Government has undertaken the promotion of academic innovation in Bangladesh’s universities as a major component of Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP), first of its kind in the country, with the support of World Bank. The objectives of this component are to establish enabling conditions to improve the quality and relevance of teaching-learning and research and to introduce an efficient instrument for the allocation of public funds in universities with emphasis on innovation. The University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC) is the implementing agency of the project.
The academic innovation is a new concept in Bangladesh and its competitive nature is a challenge for the UGC and the higher education institutions. It demands high degree of transparency and accountability in using public funds as a tool for inducing academic innovation and lift the quality of tertiary education to world standard. I expect that the successful implementation of Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) component would accelerate the process of attaining the much desired level by our universities.
In view of implementing the component successfully UGC prepared this Operations Manual (OM) as the detail guide linefor the 2nd round AIF competition.It describes the rules and procedures that have to be meticulously followed by the UGC and the universities. In the first round, the OM was found very useful in carrying out the component. This revised Manual, I believe, will be significantly helpful to implement the new sub-projects.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the UGC and HEQEP for revising the Manual which was not an easy task.I hope that the project would succeed in achieving the objectives of the component by devoting the same level of excellence and expertise.
Dr. Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury
Secretary
Ministry of Education
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh
Introduction to Second Edition
In the introduction to this Manual’s first edition the concept of AIF and the whole organizational set up for its implementation including management at the institutional levels was explained in detail. That information still remains fully relevant and will be useful to the concerned stakeholders for the second round of AIF; so we have decided to leave it intact as a point of reference for AIF implementation.
In the meantime the first round of AIF that began in May 2010 has reached the implementation phase and the experience we gained in the course of nine month long proposal processing and awarding of grants to successful entities in January 2011 has given us some insight for sharpening and pruning some of the procedural mechanism for AIF’s processing and implementation for the second round. The changing circumstances at the universities in the past one and a half year also necessitated to bring in some modifications. The areas where revisions have been made are as follows:
- Grouping of universities has been reorganized;
- Allocation ceiling to universities has been revised;
- Allocation to windows has been revised;
- Two areas, Business and Law have been merged in one broad area;
- Overall proposal processing period has been reduced by adjusting some individual timelines;
- Provision for evaluation of window-3 CPs by special ARP has been dropped;
- Provision of a new committee for each of the seven areas (Committee of Experts) has been added;
- Formation of UGCBAIF has been reorganized by inclusion of AIF Coordinator as its Secretary and PD as invited member;
- Provision for disposal of appeal has been modified;
- Provision for delegating financial power to SPMs has been dropped so as to enable them to work under the delegation of financial power of respective university;
- Provision for submission of monthly progress report by the SPMs has been dropped;
- New provision on justification of the proposed budget has been added in both PP and CP formats;
- Provision for impact of the sub-project on environment has been included in the PP format;
- A new Annex on SWOT analysis (Annex 1-B) has been included.
From the HEQEP implementation unit centrally we could see that the major hurdles the first round SPMs encountered were procurement and financial management (FM). This was anticipated too considering the academics’ non-exposure to project implementation activities previously. In the Introduction to the first edition of this Manual this was rightly emphasized. For this reason the project put extra efforts for organizing training of stakeholders on procurement and FM during the last one year and several batches of academics and officials have undergone the exercise. The HEQEP unit is adequately staffed to meet this challenge and we are happy to observe that the SPMs have already demonstrated their abilities to pick up these rather thorny subjects quite well. We are confident that the round two SPMs would equally be adaptive to learn the very important but dismal job of procurement and FM of sub-projects.
In this regard we would like to remind the fact that although carried out in an environment of full autonomy, AIF sub-projects nevertheless are essentially development endeavor like any other public sector project and therefore follows the same implementation mechanism including rules and regulations laid down for government implementing agencies. It might be instinctive for a SPM to consider a sub-project as his/her personal initiative in the atmosphere of academic freedom that characterizes the public or private universities in Bangladesh. While this feeling has some positive aspect in the sense that the SPM has to take the full responsibility for the whole range of activities of sub-project implementation, it should always be kept at the back of his/her mind that it is a collective venture of the proposal submitting entity and the objective of AIF is improvement of quality and relevance of higher education at the institutional level that would benefit the country.
We are happy to announce that beside AIF, implementation of BdREN, the other most important component of HEQEP has progressed quite well. By the time this manual is published seven universities around Dhaka are going to be connected with the BdREN network operating center (NOC) located at UGC. By the time second round AIF awards will be announced in December 2011 most public universities will be connected and begin to reap the benefits of high performance connectivity that could only be dreamt of a year ago. It is needless to say that BdREN would transform the digital landscape of Bangladesh higher education and tremendously contribute to improve the quality and relevance of tertiary education in tandem with AIF and actually assist in achieving one of the major outcome indicator of the HEQEP, i.e., “increased proportion of students and faculty staff with access to advanced internet connectivity”. The BdREN would raise the standard of teaching-learning and research activities to first world level. It would also hugely assist the SPMs and the proposal submitting entities in discharging their responsibilities concerning AIF. We request the SPMs and the universities to fully utilize the facilities established by BdREN.
Regarding other important matters concerning AIF management and implementation we purposely refrain from repeating of what already was mentioned in the introduction to the first edition. We would only urge the sub-project implementing entities and SPMs to follow the guidance provided in this Manual and contact the UGCAIFS staff for any sub-project implementation matter they find difficult to deal with. We at the HEQEP unit are always ready to extend all kinds of assistance for the steady progress of AIF.