Published on: Friday, May 29, 2009 |
His confidence stems from the recognition attained by its researchers through their works which have won in various competitions held locally and internationally.
This is one of the important criteria to be firstly fulfilled to enable a university achieve the status of a research university, he said, adding the other criteria would be that the university must have a lot of research works done that can be commercialised, research funding and so on.
"In 2015, I will do another press conference to announce that we (UMS) have become a research universityÉit is not long from now," he said confidently at a press conference after a luncheon held to celebrate the university's research successes during the recent Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition (ITEX) 2009 in Kuala Lumpur and the 37th International Exhibition of Inventions New Techniques & Products Geneva 2009.
"There are a lot of advantages becoming a research university which include in terms of funding for conducting research as well as the rating or branding of the university itself," said Kamaruzaman.
Research activity plays a crucial role in the branding of a university, he said, adding UMS is now beginning to build its internal strength.
UMS had since 2006 received about RM26 million for research purposes, Kamaruzaman disclosed.
However, this is actually not that much compared to other universities, especially those that have already attained research university status, which have financial support amounting to hundreds of million of ringgit.
"Our researchers also received allocation from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) in various forms like Inno Fund and so on, as well as from the Higher Learning Ministry. At the same time, there are also allocations provided by UMS for young researchers, who we must support so that they can contribute," he said.
To a question, Kamaruzaman said the university presently has two of its gold-winning research works in the pipeline for commercialisation.
"It will be not long (for both works to go commercial)Éwe are really pushing for it locally and internationally," he said.
One of these is a research by Associate Prof. Dr Md Abdul Mannan, related to construction material made based on oil palm wastes, while the other is by Dr Rossita Shapawi involving prototype feeds for fish which is formulated using a special blend of alternative ingredients to the conventional fish meal and fish oil which are eco-friendly and much cheaper.
UMS research teams bagged two gold, eight silver and 10 bronze medals during the ITEX 2009 held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) from May 15-17.
The university submitted 20 research works for the competition. It was also adjudged the winner of the "Most Visited Telebooth."
The gold medals were won by a three-member team of researchers led by Dr Chan Eng Seng through their work titled "LCP Method: A new technique for surface tension determination of liquids" and another team of four researchers led by Dr Md Abdul Mannan through their work titled "C-Channel - An Efficient Precast RC Floor Panel for Modern Buildings".
At the International Exhibition of Inventions, New Techniques and Products, Geneva 2009, held at PALEXPO in Geneva, Switzerland, from April 1-5, UMS also won one gold, one silver and seven bronze medals in all the nine research works submitted.
The gold medal was won by a four-member research team led by Grace Joy Chin Wei Lie from the UMS Biotechnology Research Institute through their method/kit for detecting the presence of harmful algae (Pyrodinium bahamense var. compressum) in seawaters.
Kamaruzaman said the university aspired to see all its research works made into something that is tangible, which can be used by the public, through commercialisation.
"We want to commercialise these research works. Research is not something that is cheap, it costs a lot of money, and thus we want to transform and translate these R&D into something tangible which can be used by the community," he said.
UMS Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Prof. Dr Rosnah Ismail, was also present.
