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Professor Murtedza Mohamed was recently appointed
as the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation)
at UNIMAS. Prior to this appointment, he has been
the director of the Centre for Technology Transfer
& Consultancy (CTTC), dean of the Faculty
of Resource Science & Technology (FRST) and
director of the Research, Innovation and Management
Centre (RIMC). He has always been active in research,
having led numerous projects with funds from local
and international agencies as well as consultancy
works for the government and the private sectors.
Indeed, Prof. Murtedza is at the forefront in
the development of research culture at UNIMAS.
Insight's Rozita Nawi has had the opportunity
to interview him on his views about governance
of research in UNIMAS. Below is the full text
of the interview.
Q: Could you describe your current portfolio
as the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research &
Innovation) of the university?
A:
The portfolio for DVC for research in many public
universities in Malaysia has in the past included
overseeing physical development on campus. Last
year, the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE)
revised the functions of this portfolio, taking
into consideration the need to give stronger emphasis
on applied research that can directly contribute
to the well-being and wealth of the nation. The
reformatted' portfolio, applicable to all IPTAs
in the country, is called DVC (Research &
Innovation). Development affairs are now placed
directly under the care of Vice Chancellors. The
principal responsibilities of DVC (R&I) as
decided by MoHE include the following:
::
Plan, promote, implement and manage research programmes
at the university
::
Implement strategies that can enhance the
competence of academic staff in doing research
and presenting the research outputs meaningfully
::
Promote applied/market oriented research and identify
outputs that can eventually be commercialised
::
Promote consultancy services and marketable educational
and training packages (in the context of knowledge
and technology transfer) to the public and private
sectors
At
UNIMAS, specific portfolios entrusted upon me
by the Vice Chancellor are overseeing:
::
the management of research and innovation, conferences
and academic publications, with the Research &
Innovation
Management Centre (RIMC) as the secretariat;
::
the management of academic and research information
resources made available through our Centre for
Academic
Information Services (CAIS); and
::
the management of campus net working and provision
of ICT facilities and needs of faculties, students,
finance, research, academic and human resource
divisions.
These services are offered through the Centre
for Information and Communication Technology Services
(CICTS) and Centre for Applied Learning &
Multimedia (CALM).
Q:
Briefly, what has UNIMAS achieved in research
to date?
A:
Like most comprehensive universities worldwide,
and starting from "zero," our initial
years had been focused largely on teaching and
learning. Our young academics were then busy with
curriculum design, courseware development, etc.
that deprived them of adequate time for doing
serious research. During the last six or seven
years, however, we have started seeing spikes
of excellence in R&D at UNIMAS, as indicated
through publications in highly reputed journals
(e.g., The Lancet), and awards for utility innovations
(e.g., the e-Bario Project) and industrial design
(e.g., the
eco-ceramic project) at both national and international
levels.
As of 2005, the number of research projects undertaken
at UNIMAS stood at 599, 55% of which were in natural
and applied sciences, 19% in technology and engineering
and 26% in social science and humanities; outputs
included 830 publications (2001 - 2005). These
projects were funded by a total budget of RM51.4
million, secured through the regular government
funding sources (61%) as well as from private
sources, corporate sectors and international funding
agencies (39%). These included endowments for
eight Research Chairs, which in itself were reflective
of the strength of UNIMAS in R&D.
Today, our strength is being acknowledged by peers
in at least three niche areas of research, that
is:
::
Biotechnological research in epidemiology (dengue,
JE, FMHD, malaria), biogeography (phylogenetics)
and agriculture (sago)
:: ICT, specifically on rural communication and
image analysis
:: Biodiversity, natural resource and environmental
management
Although UNIMAS has managed to secure only two
patents to date, award-winning utility innovations
and industrial designs are numerous. In recognition
of their strength
in research, the university management has recently
upgraded the status of two groups of researchers
at UNIMAS to Centres of Excellence; they are Malaria
Research Centre and Centre for Water Research.
Q:
Research productivity and teaching effectiveness
shed light on the long-debated question of whether
performance in one area enhances performance in
the other. Could you comment on this statement?
A:
In academic world, the complementary functions
of teaching and research have long been acknowledged.
Prominent scholars, locally and internationally,
are known to
be strong and excel in both. A devoted scholar
will always find it satisfying and accomplished
when they get to use
their own case studies to support their lectures.
The rationale for academics to be actively involved
in research
includes the following:
:: Promoting the significance of innovative learning
through research as part of staff and student
skills and intellectual development
::
Accumulating and synthesising results of learning
process, research findings and practical experience
into the pool of dynamic or progressive knowledge
contents
::
Integration of up to date knowledge and methodology
to teaching and training curriculum
::
Making available the process and outcomes of research
findings to relevant stakeholders and the world
Having
said that, the question of whether the performance
in one enhances the other should not really be
looked upon as a contentious issue. Instead, I
believe in looking at these two as a package.
For tertiary education (unlike at school level)
this package is an imperative. As scholars, we
have
to be busy with both; and one of the basic requisites
for this package is that we have to stay at the
frontier of
knowledge and remain current at all times through
constant reading and publishing in our respective
disciplines.
There
are of course various different factors that govern
the productivity of research and the effectiveness
of teaching; but the irony is while others are
forever disgruntled by constraints, dedicated
scholars continue to perform and excel under the
same limitations.
Q:
In your opinion, what are the challenges that
academics have to face when they have to juggle
their research work with their teaching tasks?
A:
This is very much related to your earlier question.
But,
I believe that the difficulty of having to juggle
up time for teaching and research are very much
the predicament amongst new lecturers and those
having to teach new courses. Yes, it is understandable
that this category of people will have to spend
more time to develop quality courseware; meaning,
during that period they will have
less time to work on their research interests.
That is exactly the reason why research at UNIMAS
only began to accelerate during the last 5 years.
I
guess the crux of the matter here are passion
for knowledge and research, and good time management,
which develops into routines of scholarly culture.
Going by the present quality code of practice,
the academic load of
lecturers are more or less pre-determined. If
I were to paint a scenario of typical daily routines
expected of us, I would see the following: one
to two hours of lectures and
tutorials in the morning, browsing through the
latest edition of journal papers/publications
before lunch, attending research colloquium or
academic discourse during lunch or early afternoon,
supervision of research students thereafter, allocating
also time for academic writing, fieldwork and/or
consultancy work one day in a week.
Q:
The University has set up the Research and Innovation
Management Centre (RIMC). What is the role of
the RIMC? What initiatives will this centre launch
in order to encourage research and innovation
in the university?
A:
The RIMC is part of the research governance structure
at UNIMAS. Basically, RIMC is responsible for
overseeing the management of research and research
output in this
university. Specifically, the tasks of the RIMC
are to:
::
serve as the administrative secretariat to the:
o UNIMAS Research and Services Committee
o UNIMAS Academic Publication Committee
o Research Expert Panels (tasked with scrutinizing
and recommending support for research proposals
on the basis of merit, timeliness, relevance and
excellence)
o Research Chair Steering Committees
o UNIMAS Conference Committee
::
develop and maintain a research database and financial
management system for research projects carried
out in UNIMAS; and
::
promote development, patenting, exploitation and
commercialisation of research and innovative outputs
by UNIMAS researchers.
Q:
In recent years, our lecturers have been winning
awards for their research works, doing our university
proud. Will the university be creating more opportunities
for our lecturers to showcase their research work
in order to gain recognition in the international
scene?
A:
Certainly, we shall continue to aggressively promote
and project quality research findings, through
mass media and exhibitions, both locally and internationally.
This endeavour is certainly beneficial at least
in terms of increasing our visibility (make people
aware of our existence and competence), attracting
research funding, and alluring researchers and
new students. It has been decided by
the University Senate and Deans Council that UNIMAS
will continue to make available the necessary
funds to support our participation in local and
international expositions.
Q:
What are your aspirations for the next 5 to 10
years especially in the context of enhancing research
and innovation in the university?
A:
Very simple, all our stakeholders will be happy
if we manage to thread well along the universally
accepted performance indices. For a university
to be considered as excellent in research the
key performance indicators include:
::
Number and quality of active researchers (rated
by the number of years of research experience)
::
Number of registered research projects
::
Number of supporting research personnel (post-doctorates,
research fellows and post-graduate research students)
::
Number and quality of research output:
patents, products, books, refereed journals, awards/recognitions,
policy papers etc.
::
Number of centre of excellence, quantum of research
grants received (local, international), budget
allocation for research, research facilities/equipment,
research information
support system
::
Networking - locally and internationally
Specifically for UNIMAS, and in the present context
of stakeholders' expectations, the minimum targets
we should all try to achieve are:
:: Immediate: Every academic staff has a research
grant, with at least 40% of them involved as principle
investigators
::
Within 3 years: Every academic staff feels comfortable
submitting research papers to refereed/cited journals,
nationally and internationally; and UNIMAS receives
25
awards and recognition per year
::
Within 5 - 10 years: Every academic staff secures
at least RM30,000 of research grant/ year, with
50% of the total grants come from international
or private sector funding sources. Each academic
staff should be supervising at least 2 post graduate
students and submitting 2 papers in national/international
refereed journals per year.
In terms of innovation we should try to come up
with least 15 IPR protected output per year that
can either be patented, commercialised, or copyrighted
(including
original writings).
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