The SERENE program, coined as an acronym for South-South Exchange of Research and Education Network Experience, was a series of activities that applied what is called the 'blended learning' approach, using a combined variety of tools such as web based discussions, live multisite videoconferences, and in person study visits and workshops, as a program of the global development learning network. Given the global and collaborative nature of contemporary research and the digitization of knowledge resources, access to internet and to research networks has become a pre-requisite for the provision of quality higher education in a country. Yet in some South Asian countries access to internet is poor and still very expensive, leading to academic isolation, exclusion from global research and low quality of teaching. The objectives of the program were to assist the participants in producing country policy plans for building research networks in their own countries and to encourage the establishment of a regional association of South Asian National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). The eventual outcomes of the program were, on the one hand, a conviction by the participating policy makers that an NREN was essential for the development of their higher education systems, and on the other, a series of policy notes to their respective governments on how to go about establishing and managing such a network.