INTERVIEW

Professor Dato’ Dr. Mohd. Amin Jalaludin

Vice Chancellor of University Malaya

Poor education policies and practices leave many countries in what amounts to a permanent state of economic recession. While there is room for improvement in the Malaysian education system, the country is making headway in establishing itself and its sectors as world-class entities. Professor Dato’ Dr. Mohd. Amin Jalaludin, Vice Chancellor of University Malaya, talks about R&D and innovation, the creation of the AEC and the educational philosophy of the University of Malaya.

"Malaysia is not only the education hub but as you well know the vision (Vision 2020) of our former Prime Minister was to transform the country from an agricultural nation to an industrial economy. The Infrastructure in Malaysia is improving all the time, we have the Northern, Southern and East corridors connecting the nation."

FDI Spotlight: What is the educational philosophy of the University of Malaya?

Professor Dato’ Dr. Mohd. Amin Jalaludin: “The educational philosophy of the University has developed over the years since the history of our institution.  The philosophy keeps changing and evolving according to current needs and future needs.

In the past the University was focused solely on creating highly knowledgeable individuals.  Nowadays, the role of the University is also to produce individuals with specific skills.  The higher education sector, including the University of Malaya, has opened up to partner with the industry and prepare graduates who will be able to go out and work immediately. This is in line with the Malaysia Higher Education Blueprint (Higher Education) which will be launched on 7 April 2015.

We are also looking to create job creators and individuals who will be able to go out and act as entrepreneurs.  The industry has an important role to play here and we want to work to bring real world experience into the teaching environment.

Educators here can now take an industrial sabbatical leave, spend two years in the industry and then come back and teach.  We encourage our academic staff now to be free to create spin off companies and foster their own entrepreneurial projects from here.”

What are your comments on the creation of the AEC in 2015?

“A good question to ask is: are we ready? 

In order to help prepare the nation for the creation of the AEC the University of Malaya has set up the Centre for ASEAN Regionalism (CARUM).  Through this centre we hope to bring everyone together from many disciplines to come up with a balanced approach to ASEAN.

Time is passing quickly however and December 2015 will soon be upon us.  As Malaysia is holding the chairmanship, this gives us through the Centre the chance to bring policy to the attention of governments which will have a positive influence on ASEAN development this year.

Malaysia is strongly positioned to be the educational hub of the region. The new strategic blueprint for Higher Education is a well-organized approach for future developments in education and will allow Malaysia to stand out in the region.”

What are your views in R&D and Innovation?

“We have established the University of Malaya Centre for Innovation and Commercialization (UMCIC) and in collaboration with the government, we are planning to transform it into the Malaysian Innovation Hub.  Hopefully by the time the ASEAN Economic Community is created this Malaysian Innovation Hub will be converted in to the ASEAN Innovation Hub.

We want to take the lead in the region. We have products here that are ready to be commercialized.  We need to continue to push forward with commercialization and at the same time show that we can deliver as a research university.  

The research culture is thriving here. Our ISI-indexed publications exceeded 3,100 in 2014, making UM the most prolific Malaysian university in research by far and the first Malaysian university to ever exceed 3,000 ISI-indexed publications in a single year. UM’s Field-weighted Citation Impact for articles reached 1.36 in 2014, the highest ever overall citation impact in a Malaysian university. Most notably, UM scored the highest Field-weighted Citation Impact in Malaysia in 3 out of the Top 5 Research Areas of the World, making it the leader in Medicine, Engineering and Computer Science in Malaysia. Overall, UM also scored higher than world average in 13 out of 27 journal categories, attesting to its overall impressive credentials as Malaysia’s top research university. UM’s research performance was particularly noteworthy in Biodiesel fuel performance and evaluation, where it made up a quarter of the world’s core papers in this subject.

UM’s international patent citation index was 0.7 in 2014, again the highest among Malaysian universities. These stellar research performance milestones were in no small measure responsible for UM’s 151st place in the QS World University Rankings, 32nd place in the QS Asian University Rankings and 301-400 band in the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

UM also filed 240 patents in 2014 and was granted 66 patents in a single year, the best performance of any Malaysian university in a single year and our income from in commercialization jumped to RM 10 million in 2014.

We have put our head on the block, so to speak, by requesting government grants on top of our research grant.  We had to deliver in research & development and we have proven over recent years we can do so.  The University has a proven track record.
We are working together with international partners to focus on the commercialization stage.”

How stable and developed do you see Malaysia?

“Malaysian is a peaceful country.

Malaysia is not only the education hub but as you well know the vision (Vision 2020) of our former Prime Minister was to transform the country from an agricultural nation to an industrial economy.

The Infrastructure in Malaysia is improving all the time, we have the Northern, Southern and East corridors connecting the nation.

Education has been the base for all this development over the past twenty to thirty years and is at the heart of everything in Malaysia.”