Collaboration the key to success
tHE new international branch campus of University of Reading Malaysia (UoRM) is bringing its best and brightest to Malaysia’s higher education sector.
Recent conferences in Cognitive Neuroscience as well as Sustainable Construction are showing off University of Reading Malaysia’s best researchers working with top Malaysian experts to address some of the government’s key economic priorities for the next decade.
University of Reading Malaysia vice-chancellor Sir David Bell says that it’s just the basic approach to establishing the Malaysia campus. “We are establishing ourselves as a fully participating and collaborating member of the Malaysian higher education sector and society.”
Cognitive Neuroscience and Multilingualism
A first international conference on Cognitive Neuroscience was co-hosted by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in conjunction with University of Reading from Feb 10 to 13. Experts across the field came together to exchange ideas and experience in behavioural and neuroscientific research. Their specific area of concern was literacy, multilingualism and cognition.
Malaysia’s special status as a multilingual country is proving a perfect foundation for the launch of many research projects exploring how people learn second, third and fourth languages and how they speak and understand others. Malaysia can provide unique research opportunities for scholars from a range of disciplines linked to the topic of multilingualism and University of Reading researchers hope to help jump-start indigenous research agendas here with their wideranging expertise.
A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between both UKM and UPM with University of Reading. The next steps include a bid to establish a major global research centre on multilingualism in Malaysia that will produce world-ranked research for the country and beyond.
Sustainable construction
On Feb 19 and 20, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) joined forces with University of Reading Malaysia to co-host an industry and research-wide colloquium on construction issues for today and tomorrow.
The world of construction is changing – building off-site is changing production, BIM (Building Information Modelling) is changing design and the digitisation of information is impacting the speed of information delivery. There is an increasing need to share ideas and visions of the future.
Speakers for the first day were industry leaders from the Asean region. They shared their vision of the future and the challenges to be faced. This was followed by a Research Day with an impressive list of speakers who stimulated debate about the research issues for the region and visions for the future. As befits a meeting of minds across both education and industry, the top construction organisations were big supporters of the event.
University of Reading is a World Top 200 university and in the top 1% of all universities worldwide – it has achieved its status by ensuring that its research is top-ranked and global in impact and its teaching is informed by this research to make it the best it can be. University of Reading is one of the world’s leading universities, respected for its academic excellence and commitment to delivering the highest quality all-round education.
University of Reading attracts and selects the best students and prides itself on producing graduates who are highly sought after by employers across the globe.
University of Reading Malaysia at EduCity in Iskandar Malaysia will be the first overseas campus for the university. It will accommodate 2,500 students and offer courses in law, built environment, finance and business, with its Henley Business School being recognised as one of the world’s leading business educators.
Classes in Foundation in Business began in September 2013 and University of Reading Malaysia will launch its BSc in Finance and Business Management in September 2014 before rolling out courses across all subject areas the following year.
For details, look out for the university’s advertisement in this StarSpecial.