UTeM sets its sights high
Varsity aims to become 1st technical university to get 5-star MyRA rating
HEADING into its 17th year of establishment, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) hopes to become the first technical university in the country to achieve a fivestar Malaysia Research Assessment Instrument (MyRA) rating, usually achieved by research universities.
UTeM deputy Vice-Chancellor (research and innovation) Professor Datuk Ir Dr Mohd Jailani Mohd Nor said this was to establish a platform by which the university would be recognised not just as a prominent national university, but also as a contributor towards the global industry.
“Research is the activity that creates new knowledge. All activities conducted at universities to discover new knowledge and to push the boundaries of knowledge are categorised as research,” he said.
“But research can confuse the public when it is combined with development. In the world of academics, research means purely generating new knowledge, whereas in an industry, it means using knowledge or innovation that is established to develop new products. They call that research, but that is actually development.
“So, if people in the industry talk about research, their meaning is possibly biased towards development. When academics talk about research, it is purely about generating new knowledge. Thus the output will be different. For us, new knowledge gained from research is output into articles in journals, which are produced from the accumulation of data. Output from development usually comes in the form of prototypes, components or systems. These two different focuses must be made clear.
“It should be hand-in-hand. At UTeM we are doing both. This is why our products are commercialised. We are generating new knowledge, but at the same time we are generating new technology in development of new products, new components and new intellectual property. At UTeM, the research component is 30 per cent of the responsibility, besides teaching and learning, social services and others,” said Jailani.
UTeM was established in 2001 as Kolej Universiti Teknikal Malaysia (KUTEM). At that time, the focus was more on teaching and learning.
“Only when I arrived in 2012 did we begin to put into place research as part of the important mechanisms of the university. From then on our results, such as research publications, had increased. Our research publications had seen an increase of almost 100 per cent within a year from 2012 to 2013,” he said.
“The momentum is rising. UTeM is soaring upwards in terms of its research output. At the same time our research grants, the number of researchers and publications have increased. So, the culture of doing research is now established in UTeM.
“The next step is the industrialisation of research.
“Our advantage is that UTeM is a technical university. Our approach is more hands on. Secondly, we are closer to the industry with 40 per cent of our staff having a minimum of four years industry experience. We are working with industry players such as Infineon, Western Digital, Perodua, Proton and IBM,” he said.
“Last year, we received a research grant from Crest Systems amounting to more than RM1 million, which is testimony of UTeM researchers working together with the industry. There are other smaller projects where we work with the industry in our activities.
“We are commercialising about two or three products a year, which is an improvement from the 10 years prior to the establishment of our research programme when our focus was just on teaching and learning, and we commercialised just two products. This is our impact to the industry and the economy, by sharing technology and by commercialising new products.
"Our latest product is the ‘Suci Uris’ urinal system, especially for people who are ill and those who are performing the haj. So far, the response has been encouraging, and there is potential for the company involved to export the product to markets, such as Indonesia and Thailand. This is good for Malaysia, economically, in terms of generating exports.”
With all this in place, UTeM’s next priority would be towards the recognition of its research capabilities, and its first step would be improving its current three-star MyRA rating to a five-star rating, bringing it on par with top local research universities.
Among the challenges faced by the university is ensuring that its researchers and academics share the same aspiration.
“In this past year we have conducted programmes geared towards engagement, to share our aspirations and our reasons on why we should go there. Usually when the players know why, it is easier to reason out the questions of what and how. It is always easier to explain what this MyRA five-star rating is and how we can do it. The difficult question to answer is always why we should go there.
“It is because the world has changed. All the top universities are gearing towards excellence in research and development. We can’t allow ourselves to be left behind. For UTeM’s sustainability and survivability, that is the only choice. We have to play the excellence game in research.”
Ultimately, is the university’s task, in view of the fourth industrial revolution, to ensure that its production line of graduates are armed with skill sets that are relevant for the future.
“There is a close relationship between research and this aspect. The elements of research are significantly tied to that outcome. By working closely with the industry, we are ensuring that the elements required are transferred to the students, and this will ensure that our graduates remain relevant to the industry,” he said.
“In the fourth industrial revolution, there are several vital components; first of which is data. There is a huge resource of data available. Secondly is connectivity, which links all the players involved. The third, which makes people nervous now, is artificial intelligence. When we put in components that allow a machine to learn, it can eventually be better than us.
“The very fundamental core element in the fourth industrial revolution is that you can no longer work in silos. There is connectivity between everything. Research too is no longer in silo. It is part and parcel of teaching and learning because of the readiness of the infrastructure and the information structure. You can no longer split research from teaching and learning, because if you do that then you are working in a silo.”